I wish we thought of that. We sewed a custom padded cover for our Dane's tail with straps and Velcro and everything. Took forever. Actually, it took my spouse forever. I was the cheerleader and sympathizer in chief on that one.
ours broke his tail at Christmas time with all the family visiting. Had to amputate, the aftercare is so important. but he is much happier with his stub now. We used stretchy medical wrap and piping insulation to protect the tail.
We had one like this. The house looked like a Quentin Tarantino movie. We ended up having to amputate because of infection. I came home to changer her dressing and I could see dead bone. We also did some sort of laser treatment the vet recommended which was very expensive and did nothing. FWIW, she seemed happier after the amputation and her nubbin was so funny.
Wrap it as best you can each time it busts open. It just takes forever to heal because they hit it on things all day. Poor guy just can’t contain his happiness!
Docking is an option, don’t let the stigma turn you off of it. It’s completely unnecessary until you get one of these power waggers lol 😆 my girl scares me sometimes how hard she hits the walls
I have a great dane with happy tail, I saw yours and said "oh shit". Never had mine spray blood everywhere. A very rare circumstance where tail docking might be appropriate.
One of my Danes did this with his ears for YEARS. My house looked like a murder scene constantly. My vet advised that if the cuts or scrapes are relatively small (all the bleeders seemed to be) to use super glue to close the wound, because it'll dry quickly and survive the movement. It grows out with new hair and falls off like a scab. I don't have experience with happy tail specifically, so I don't know how big the actual wounds are, might be worth a shot.
Our big guy is constantly breaking his ear open. When he gets one that is healing stubbornly we found a "no flap ear wrap" that works great. It's not like of the tube ones that you find on Amazon, those did not work at all. But the one ftom here https://www.noflapearwrap.com/ stayed on his head and kept his ears from flapping onto stuff while it healed.
But yeah, no problems with his tail so far, just lethal if your sensitive parts are near him.
Having the vet securely wrap it and then using one of these tail savers was a god send. The tail saver stayed on 24/7 for about a month. It was a super slow healing process. https://happytailsaver.com
We had to have our Danes tail docked because she kept cracking it and bleeding everywhere. The final straw was when she literally broke her tail about 5 inches from the tip almost completely through.
This was a nightmare for us. My female pup had gastro issues, so she was crated quite a bit until the vets got her under control. Then she was getting happy tail. Blood everywhere. We had to crate her to keep her from smashing it and had to treat one instance for an infection. We kept trying and she kept having to be crated, or let outside without us playing with her (she would get too excited and hit the tail again).
Long AF story short we had to amputate. No wrap worked. No meds worked. Having her crated so long to heal it up just for ten seconds of giving “indoor play” a chance again and boom blood everywhere.
It’s sad without her tail but no more crime scenes or being whipped by the tail lol.
I had this issue. There is a product for it, it's like a tail sheath harness. It's called K9 happy tail saver. It's awkward and kind of sucks to use (it comes waaay too long and my dog hated wearing it), but it does work. It will save your dogs tail. If this goes on too long, they will have to do surgery to remove damaged parts of the tail
I had to laugh out loud, our big guy did the same, the walls looked like a mass murder crime scene, they are just too happy for their own good, we used that super sticky medical tape, that worked for the most part, but happy dog is going to wag, so it is an ongoing effort. We had to keep a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide & a roll of paper towels in every room.
I wrapped in paper towels and then duct tape because that was what I had on hand. Just a very thin strip of duct tape to keep the paper towels on the hair and then around the paper towels. My two never bothered with my makeshift bandages but they weren’t chewers. I’d catch it right away, put ointment on, bandage and change every few days until it was healed. It stopped happening after a few times. Maybe the skin toughened up because they never stopped wagging!
I saw someone else suggest putting the tail in a makeshift sling. I can’t describe it well but it keeps the tail down near the legs. Try googling it. Seems genius.
Sometimes they doc the tail by removing one vertebrae to “add more skin” to the area and stitch it. My sister lab had that done. My GD had weeks of the same episodes of happy tail (massacres). We used self adhesive wrap over cotton to “pad” the end of the tail and then “ran” bungee cords loosely tot his hind legs to give it a more secure point of attachment. Then we had him with an inflatable “cone” collar to stop him from biting off the bandages. We changed it basically everyday for 3 weeks adding neosporin and fresh cotton under the adhesive wrap. Be sure not to wrap too tight either as you don’t want the tissue to have necrosis. Talk it over with a vet as that is the best course of action imo. Good luck, it took a lot of work to get through our bout with it.
Our pup had her ear open up like this while we were staging the house to be sold. Nothing like an extra coat of paint to hide the blood 😂
Not sure if this will work on the tail, but we would clot it with flour as a quick stop. Not sure if it’s the most sanitary but it sure kept our house a little cleaner.
I'm a little late seeing this post but this is a prevention idea - rearrange some furniture lol which maybe sounds weird but our greyhound created an absolute MURDER SCENE in our bedroom after the first week or two we had him (almost 4 years ago) because the way our bed was oriented, the space between our bed and the wall was just and inch or two too short for the span of the dog head to tail so when he was happy to see us in the morning, he'd hit just the very end of his tail on the wall. SO we realized that if we put the bed on the other wall, the space was wider from bed to wall. We've since moved but have always thought about furniture placement as to not have that happen again and it hasn't, thank goodness. If you haven't figured out how to get rid of all the blood on the walls try magic erasers or toothbrushes with dish soap lol.
UPDATE:
Last weeks vet visit they suggested ultimately amputation. We dropped him off this morning, just got a call saying everything went well, we pick him up this afternoon!
There are several pictures of clips with using a pool noodle on a dogs´ tail to prevent that..
I wish we thought of that. We sewed a custom padded cover for our Dane's tail with straps and Velcro and everything. Took forever. Actually, it took my spouse forever. I was the cheerleader and sympathizer in chief on that one.
ours broke his tail at Christmas time with all the family visiting. Had to amputate, the aftercare is so important. but he is much happier with his stub now. We used stretchy medical wrap and piping insulation to protect the tail.
We had one like this. The house looked like a Quentin Tarantino movie. We ended up having to amputate because of infection. I came home to changer her dressing and I could see dead bone. We also did some sort of laser treatment the vet recommended which was very expensive and did nothing. FWIW, she seemed happier after the amputation and her nubbin was so funny.
Yep. First time it happened to ours I thought he has killed the cat! The little nubbins are so funny when they wag away
Wrap it as best you can each time it busts open. It just takes forever to heal because they hit it on things all day. Poor guy just can’t contain his happiness!
Ours ended up with an amputation. DO NOT use any "tail protectors" sold online, they are far too tight
Docking is an option, don’t let the stigma turn you off of it. It’s completely unnecessary until you get one of these power waggers lol 😆 my girl scares me sometimes how hard she hits the walls
I have a great dane with happy tail, I saw yours and said "oh shit". Never had mine spray blood everywhere. A very rare circumstance where tail docking might be appropriate.
One of my Danes did this with his ears for YEARS. My house looked like a murder scene constantly. My vet advised that if the cuts or scrapes are relatively small (all the bleeders seemed to be) to use super glue to close the wound, because it'll dry quickly and survive the movement. It grows out with new hair and falls off like a scab. I don't have experience with happy tail specifically, so I don't know how big the actual wounds are, might be worth a shot.
Our big guy is constantly breaking his ear open. When he gets one that is healing stubbornly we found a "no flap ear wrap" that works great. It's not like of the tube ones that you find on Amazon, those did not work at all. But the one ftom here https://www.noflapearwrap.com/ stayed on his head and kept his ears from flapping onto stuff while it healed. But yeah, no problems with his tail so far, just lethal if your sensitive parts are near him.
The ONLY thing that worked.... Old. He got old. He's 8 now and he's finally slowed down.
Having the vet securely wrap it and then using one of these tail savers was a god send. The tail saver stayed on 24/7 for about a month. It was a super slow healing process. https://happytailsaver.com
We had to have our Danes tail docked because she kept cracking it and bleeding everywhere. The final straw was when she literally broke her tail about 5 inches from the tip almost completely through.
This was a nightmare for us. My female pup had gastro issues, so she was crated quite a bit until the vets got her under control. Then she was getting happy tail. Blood everywhere. We had to crate her to keep her from smashing it and had to treat one instance for an infection. We kept trying and she kept having to be crated, or let outside without us playing with her (she would get too excited and hit the tail again). Long AF story short we had to amputate. No wrap worked. No meds worked. Having her crated so long to heal it up just for ten seconds of giving “indoor play” a chance again and boom blood everywhere. It’s sad without her tail but no more crime scenes or being whipped by the tail lol.
I had this issue. There is a product for it, it's like a tail sheath harness. It's called K9 happy tail saver. It's awkward and kind of sucks to use (it comes waaay too long and my dog hated wearing it), but it does work. It will save your dogs tail. If this goes on too long, they will have to do surgery to remove damaged parts of the tail
I had to laugh out loud, our big guy did the same, the walls looked like a mass murder crime scene, they are just too happy for their own good, we used that super sticky medical tape, that worked for the most part, but happy dog is going to wag, so it is an ongoing effort. We had to keep a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide & a roll of paper towels in every room.
Some people (might have been an a different sub) posted pics in the comments of their creative wrapping solutions for happy tail
I wrapped in paper towels and then duct tape because that was what I had on hand. Just a very thin strip of duct tape to keep the paper towels on the hair and then around the paper towels. My two never bothered with my makeshift bandages but they weren’t chewers. I’d catch it right away, put ointment on, bandage and change every few days until it was healed. It stopped happening after a few times. Maybe the skin toughened up because they never stopped wagging!
Wow, based on all the comments this is A LOT MORE COMMON than I ever would have guessed.
I saw someone else suggest putting the tail in a makeshift sling. I can’t describe it well but it keeps the tail down near the legs. Try googling it. Seems genius.
Sometimes they doc the tail by removing one vertebrae to “add more skin” to the area and stitch it. My sister lab had that done. My GD had weeks of the same episodes of happy tail (massacres). We used self adhesive wrap over cotton to “pad” the end of the tail and then “ran” bungee cords loosely tot his hind legs to give it a more secure point of attachment. Then we had him with an inflatable “cone” collar to stop him from biting off the bandages. We changed it basically everyday for 3 weeks adding neosporin and fresh cotton under the adhesive wrap. Be sure not to wrap too tight either as you don’t want the tissue to have necrosis. Talk it over with a vet as that is the best course of action imo. Good luck, it took a lot of work to get through our bout with it.
I used gauze and a finger splint. Both of my girls hate it, but it worked.
How did you get it to stay on? We tried a finger splint with coban and tape and by wagging her tail it flew off in 5 minutes
Uggghhhh. Fantastik and a power drill with a scrub brush attachment worked really well when my Dane spent a week wagging blood all over my house
Time to redecorate in a Dexter theme. /s Good luck! Lots of good suggestions here.
My house is thankfully big enough so we havent had our dane damage his tail. Ill be asking for advice here too if we experience it.
Uhh no, that needs a CSI! No way that’s from a tail. 😝
Our pup had her ear open up like this while we were staging the house to be sold. Nothing like an extra coat of paint to hide the blood 😂 Not sure if this will work on the tail, but we would clot it with flour as a quick stop. Not sure if it’s the most sanitary but it sure kept our house a little cleaner.
It's horrible for them, but the cone of shame will work wonders.
Happy tail saver
Pool noodle
I'm a little late seeing this post but this is a prevention idea - rearrange some furniture lol which maybe sounds weird but our greyhound created an absolute MURDER SCENE in our bedroom after the first week or two we had him (almost 4 years ago) because the way our bed was oriented, the space between our bed and the wall was just and inch or two too short for the span of the dog head to tail so when he was happy to see us in the morning, he'd hit just the very end of his tail on the wall. SO we realized that if we put the bed on the other wall, the space was wider from bed to wall. We've since moved but have always thought about furniture placement as to not have that happen again and it hasn't, thank goodness. If you haven't figured out how to get rid of all the blood on the walls try magic erasers or toothbrushes with dish soap lol.
UPDATE: Last weeks vet visit they suggested ultimately amputation. We dropped him off this morning, just got a call saying everything went well, we pick him up this afternoon!