wierd one...

I tried teaching him to NOT wag it, but evidently I failed. Depending on what the vet says, the training part may not even be an option at this point.

Yeah, I imagine once the tail is injured it would be too late... just thought I'd throw that in in case you/anyone was curious about it.[]

As someone already mentioned, keeping the excitement level down is helpful, at least in the hallways!

I like Stanley Coren. However, like anyone else, I do not take his words as the "gospel" truth. I have personally seen a dog wag it's tail while it was looking for fish in a tidepool. It was not wagging it's tail to communicate, the tail indicated to me an "emotional" and hunting state in the dog. The tail was up, slightly stiffened, yet had a "happy tone" to it. Weird.

I guess the problem we had was the mere physics of it. He's a big guy, 125lbs last check, and pretty reactive, so "calming him down" is a lot easier said than done. We are actually working on that part regardless, but it doesn't take a very high level of excitement for the tail to be dangerous (for lack of a better word), he could be just standing next to us doing nothing much and the regular wag would leave bruises on our legs, add a little excitement and you have a lethal weapon there. I guess this is just a byproduct of having a reactive giant breed dog, my past mastiffs barely moved their tails really, I can't remember ever beeing whipped in the leg by them. Oh well, you live, you learn.....

I can always tell when Marlowe is on a scent because he wags his tail (and I'm certain it's not for my benefit, it's a reflex). I think dogs can and do "talk to themselves" with thier tails.

"talk to themselves"

LOL....Good one, I had never thought of it like that, but it makes sense really.


My last dog was a spanish mastiff, and he used to "meditate". He would lay down with his chin on top of his paw and not sleep, just look into infinity, I always wondered what, if anything, was going thru his mind, because he looked...focused.

I think the tail should not bleed that easy, maybe you should check with your vet to see if there is nothing wrong like a skin problem, maybe you could have some cushion in the wall at the same level as his tail

This is TOTALLY normal for a tail to bleed like this.  What you are seeing can also be called "happy tail" and is common in greyhounds.  This is especially true of this breed since they have thinner skin than many other breeds. The greyhound rescue I volunteer with has permanent blood splatter marks on their walls from such occurrences and My JJ was returned to the rescue by his first owner due to a “happy tail” injury that was causing repeated blood splatter on the walls throughout their home.
 
JJ then got a second owner (and went to a foster home in the meantime) and for more than 1 ½ year his tail kept splitting at the end and had to be re-bandaged daily…
 
When he was finally returned to the rescue a third time, the rescue#%92s vet made the decision to amputate the tail because the injury would never fully heal.  After adopting him I later found ER vet notes from his VERY first owner more than 2 years before in which the vet said that the reoccurring infections and injury to the tail may warrant amputation.  That vet recommended that if the problems continued after another 2-3 months, that the owners consider amputation to reduce the stress and pain this dog was experiencing…. MORE THAN 1 year passed before that poor boys tail was actually amputated and I wish someone had made the choice to do it sooner.  After so much discomfort and daily re-bandaging JJ has become fear aggressive with anything near his tail area…
 
I am not saying that your dog needs to have his tail amputated, but what you are experiencing is normal with some breeds AND in many cases can be controlled through keeping the area clean and bandaged and perhaps trying to keep him out of the areas of the home were he is more likely to re-injure it.   Just make sure you and your vet stay on top of it so as not to have a horrible experience like my boy had….   [&o]
 
Good luck!!
 

The greyhound rescue I volunteer with has permanent blood splatter marks on their walls from such occurrences

YES....if a CSI person ever comes into my house, I'm gonna have a LOT of explaining to do "you see officer, that blood is from my dog's tail".."riiiiiiiight, you have the right..."

YES....if a CSI person ever comes into my house, I'm gonna have a LOT of explaining to do "you see officer, that blood is from my dog's tail".."riiiiiiiight, you have the right..."

 
[sm=rotfl.gif]  You send him MY way Esteban... I will show him blood splatters from the rescue and set him straight... no worries...between JJ and I we will spring ya!  []

well, we picked our dog up from the vet yesterday, he had 2.5 inches of tail removed, as we suspected it was fractured, two vertebrea as it turns out. The "good" news is that the farther up the tail, the thicker the actual muscle around the bones will be, between that and the laws of physics (shorter tail, less speed at the very tip) hopefully we won't have to go thru this again. Right now he's wearing an e-collar (elizabethean not electronic) and he has to wear it for about 10 days, I have to say though...he looks FUNNY AS HELL with it, I'm woindering how many channels he gets on that thing. I also got some pipe insulation, some velcro wraps and a film container and McGyvered a tail sleeve that will allow the very tip to breath yet not be struck, bitten or licked. I had done the pipe insulation thing before, but he always managed to bite it off, but the e-collar kind of stops him from doing that right now.

He's not allowed to have any excercise for 4 days, I wonder if that will result in some sourt of coup. The good thing is that he's alert and even willing to work on his obedience, though...the collar sort of hinders his ability to take treats, oh well, we'll see how he progresses.

Aw, poor guy, hope he gets better soon! []

I am so sorry to hear that indeed your pup had to have a partial amputation... but I am also relieved to hear this since it can get so much worse if let go too long.  JJ only has 1 1/2 inches left of his so he is only left with a little nubbin of a tail. 
 
Good luck with the e collar and the "wrapping" of the tail![]

Oh, poor guy.  Vibes for a fast recovery headed his way.  Too bad we really can't pad our rooms:-(

Oh wow eley...sorry to hear this.  Xerxes, Gaia and Dodo are sending good tail healing vibes your way.

Thank you everybody for your kind comments, and your concern. Paulo is doing much better, the good thing about this whole mess is that now we are forcing ourselves to keep him calm. We're doing a lot more obedience inside the house just to keep him focused on something; he's also re-discovered his kong, which he neglected for months; we've been working on his down and sit -stays. For the time being (maybe permanently) we've completely shut off his access to the part of the house that has the narrow hallway, why we didn't think of this before is anybody's guess. The cat already figured out that the e-collar blocks most of the dog's peripheral vision, and boy is he abusing that fact. Aside from that everything is going as expected, I'm also working on his "stand still", and hopefully by the time we go to the vet to get his stitches removed they wont have to sedate him.

Now we're starting to think about re-painting the hallway and some other "affected" areas.