Broken or dislocated tail

[Goldfields]

One of my shelties has either broken or dislocated the rather fine tip of her tail, about an inch from the end. My usual vet is away, another I go to said they don't touch them unless it's bad enough to warrant docking the dog, but just curious to know if anyone has has this happen and whether your vet tried anything, like taping it maybe? My girl is fine, no pain, and she's 13, so I am not looking to straighten it because she's a show dog, I'm content to leave it be. Just curious is all.

[kathryn]

You can leave broken tails alone most of the time, but you can sometimes have the vet pop the bone back into place. I accidentally broke my cats tail before rather close to the base.. it's a long story and I was I think 14 at the time.. just mildly HORRIFYING... but my vet popped it into place and about a month later he was fine. He's never really had any problems since, his tail is still a TAD bit ... not really crooked but not as straight as it once was. He is a russian blue mix so very thin build & short coat so you could really see his tail didn't look right when I broke it.

As for today I think I accidentally broke another one of my cats tails Long story short, cat decided he wanted to bust out the door as I was closing it and I closed his tail in the door pretty dang hard...... hopefully it will teach him to stop running away

[Goldfields]

Ouch, poor cat. At least Silk's seems to have set, and being down at the tip I don't think it's as serious anyway. It's always 'something that could happen again' though, so best to get other people's views on it.

[kathryn]

Yeah my vet told me that unless the tail is so broken that it hangs in the way of potty functions it's nothing to worry about.

My feral Momma cat (who I miss quite dearly) had her tail about 3/4 of the way down completely bent into a 90 degree animal. No idea what happened to her.. she was about 10-12 when she passed.. I only moved to my house about 6 years ago and caught her shortly after and got her fixed and whatnot and her tail was already like that

Figures the only picture I could find you can't see her tail

[Goldfields]

Hahaha! That'd be right, not finding one with a tail. She was a perfectly marked cat, Border Collie markings. Bet she was glad you came into her life. They just don't live long enough, do they?

[hazelrunpack]

We usually just treat for pain, GF. If the tip is badly enough broken, it may actually dock itself naturally, or you can have it removed as the tail tip heals. When Ember broke his a couple of years ago about 3 inches from the tip, the vet did splint and tape it because it hurt so much but it isn't always possible to do that depending on the location of the break.

Is she in a lot of pain from it, poor dear?