Boken Tail

The tail is an extension of the spinal cord and if it is broken you will definitely need to take your dog to the veterinarian asap.

What kind of dog, and what happened to the tail? I hope he/she's not in any pain and you can get to a vet soon!

Thanks for the reply.  Chloe is a 18 month old Chocolate Lab.  I have no idea how it happened.  I went to the store before dinner and didn't see her again until after dinner was over.  Thats when I noticed her tail was bent.  No one saw or heard anything whil I was gone. 
 
We are out of town for Easter and I don't think I'll be successful finding a vet.  She is acting normal and playful, but her tail is definately tender and she doesn't care to have me manipulate it. 
 
Can a vet visit wait until Monday or will she incur permenant damage?  We may have no choice.

Thanks for the reply. Chloe is a 18 month old Chocolate Lab. I have no idea how it happened. I went to the store before dinner and didn't see her again until after dinner was over. Thats when I noticed her tail was bent. No one saw or heard anything whil I was gone.

We are out of town for Easter and I don't think I'll be successful finding a vet. She is acting normal and playful, but her tail is definately tender and she doesn't care to have me manipulate it.

Can a vet visit wait until Monday or will she incur permenant damage? We may have no choice.

Lance-
 
Your dog possibly/probably has what's known as Cold Water Tail.  Here's a link to info:
 
[linkhttp://www.woodhavenlabs.com/limbertail-update704.html]http://www.woodhavenlabs.com/limbertail-update704.html[/link]
 
Despite the words cold water it doesn't necessarily happen from swimming, it can be totally random.  It freaked me out when it happened to my lab but give it about a week and it'll be back to normal.  Aspirin (buffered) or another anti-inflamatory will help with discomfort. 
 
If you go to the vet print off the info from the above link because there are vets that have never even heard of it. 

Trixie sprained  her tail and I didn't know how either, however it is extremely painful, and needs some pain meds, please keep people away from touching it. especially if you have kids. give her a safe place to go to to rest it, if you are having company today.
But you do need to get the dog to a vet to see if it's broken or sprained.

 My Dal would get limber tail.  The fist time it happened was actually water related.  It was a very warm summer day and I decided to bath him outside, well a few hours later his tail went limp.  I was so freaked out, thought for sure he broke it somehow.  Luckily my vet was familiar with this and told me to give a couple of days, sure enough he was back in business in no time.  I will say that when it did happen to him he acted different.  He was usually a bit more subdued was not very playful.  Our lab also experienced a sprained tail, her tail was actually bent a little as opposed to the limber tail where it just hung straight down.  She was jumping in the air to catch her bumper and she landed on her butt, she gave a little yelp so we knew she had done something.  In a day or so she was back to normal.  Needless to say we limited her jumping and did not give Reese outside baths anymore after that! []

P.S. I second what debv53 said, I would take him/her to the vet to have them take a look.  I would not want to chance it being broken and personally I would not want to walk around with a broken anything for a few days, ouch!

My hound had an episode of limber tail, too.  But, if you want to know for sure, most localities have a 24 hour vet clinic within driving distance.  A call to a local vet office might yield the name of the clinic that covers these types of emergencies.  If you really think it's broken, and not limber tail, the heck with Easter dinner - find a clinic.  Breaks are painful, even though many dogs (especially Labs) are very stoic.

I never knew that there was a name for this.  Nigel got the limber tail the first time he went swimming and gets it everytime he goes.  We just thought it was because his tail was tired from him trying to hold it out of the water the entire time he was playing.  The first time it happened I took him to the vet and they said that there was nothing broken or really wrong, just that he probably sprained it and that I needed to let him rest it and give him baby aspirin.
 
Thanks for the link, now I know what it is that happens!
 
Lance, Nigel recovers very well with rest and some children's aspirin, hope your little girl will do the same!