My dog's tail is swollen, bloody, and she's biting it. What's wrong?

A swollen infected tail can easily turn into an abscessed tail and the infection can go into the spinal cord. Therefore I strongly recommend you take your dog to a veterinarian or petER to have the tail examined by a veterinarian. It will need to be shaved, cleaned and disinfected and your dog will likely need pain medicine and antibiotics. You should also start flea prevention, if you have not done so yet.

If he is getting bloody from hitting the walls aka "happy tail", it is likely going to need to be bandaged and padded to help it heal. Your vet would be the best person to show you how to properly bandage it. The tail can be quite tricky because you have to wrap it in a way where it sticks and doesn't cut off any circulation yet it is padded to help it heal. If you decide to try to bandage it yourself just do not wrap the tape tight or it will cut off circulation which could cause the tail to die. I would make an appointment to see you vet as soon as you can. I hope this helps!

Bailey needs to see a veterinarian to have his tail evaluated. If he is that painful he may need to be sedated. The Veterinarian would be able to examine his tail and determine what is going on. Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

While it is nearly impossible to say what the original cause of this irritation was, Molly now has a full-fledged lick dermatitis lesion on her tail. The best things you can do are the following: -Clip the area surrounding the lesion so now hair is touching the affected part -Scrub the area with antiseptic like chlorhexidine or dilute betadine -Apply a triple antibiotic ointment and a topical steroid ointment -Put an e collar on her to prevent further mutilation of the area -Treat for fleas / ticks if she is not already on something for this, as this the most common cause for lesions on the hind end and tail If you believe there is truly a lump beneath that infected area, you should have it looked by your veterinarian once the area has healed up so that appropriate diagnostics can be made if necessary. Hope this helps!

Sometimes dogs can get what we refer to as 'happy tail'. This is where they wag their tail so much that they hit it on walls and furniture and it causes an injury. This looks like what may be going on with your dog. Although Diesel's looks pretty painful and like it may be infected. You could try using a topical antibiotic, like neosporin, and see if that helps. If there is no change I would recommend you take Diesel to the vet because he may need an oral antibiotic and the vet may choose to wrap the tail to keep it protected.

Unfortunately not much you can do back home. This is probably due to an allergy, although it could also be infection or mites. First of all, in order to rule out skin parasites, you will need to treat with a high quality flea treatment, then ask the vet to perform a skin scrape - this might reveal an infection or a mite infestation. If all of those came back negative, the next step is to treat the allergy symptomatically and try to discover the cause of the allergy. Three main type of allergies are usually affecting pets: food allergies, flea and parasite related ones and environmental type (allergens coming from trees, pollens, dust etc etc). Some medications can be given by the vet in order to repair any possible skin lesions (like steroids and antibiotics). Hope this answer was helpful, but please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further.

I'm sorry Samantha's tail was slammed in a dog! First off, you did exactly the right thing by taking her into the vet. The problem with tail wounds is that dogs wag their tails, putting the wound at risk of opening back up. If Samantha is wagging her tail, that's probably why you are still seeing a bit of blood. If it's only a bit of blood, then I wouldn't be concerned. If it's a lot of blood, I would be concerned, and then you should take her back into your vet. It's impossible to get a dog to stop wagging their tail, so I recommend putting a bandage over the wound where it's bleeding in an effort to stop the bleeding. Don't put the bandage on so tight that it restricts blood flow to the tail. Samantha may want to bite and chew at the bandage, so I would get an Ecollar from the pet store to prevent her from doing that.