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Have you ever seen a Great Dane with a really short tail?  While ear-docking is a breed standard for Danes, tail docking is not.  It is done for medical reasons and many times the reason is happy tail syndrome.  

What is happy tail and how does it happen?

Simply put, when a long, bony tail is wagged hard against walls or the sides of a crate, it is injured. Once the skin on a tail is broken open it can take quite a while to heal.  Every wag adds more trauma to the injury and more blood flying around the room.  Sorry to be gory but tail wounds bleed a lot! In my experience it is more common with younger dogs.  I guess they can’t help themselves and just wag uncontrollably.

Two of our four Danes have suffered injuries from happy tail and believe me there is nothing happy about it.  Nor it is limited to Danes.  Any long tailed dog and especially short haired ones, can suffer this type of tail injury.

What to do?

First off, if it is severe, go to a veterinarian.  Cleaning and covering it are the first steps.  Keeping a tail bandaged can be difficult since it is easily reached and removed by your dog.  Our vet used a plastic syringe cover over the bandage which protected the tail but not the people around the wagging tail. I’ve recently came across the idea of using foam pipe insulation over the bandage. It protects and cushions the tail and any nearby humans.

Update

I recently came across a genius way to bandage and secure an injured tail. The tail is actually secured under the Dane for protection. The article is How to Treat Happy Tail Syndrome on the Great Dane Care blog.

If it won’t heal then the solution may end up being amputation which is what happened with K’Ehleyr. Our experiences are in a separate blog post. Her story took on a life of its own and got out of hand as most things involving K’Ehleyr did.

So if you see a Great Dane with a short tail don’t jumped to the conclusion that it was a cosmetic docking, it was probably a medical necessity from too much wagging.

Do you have any experience with happy tail? Please share them in the comments below.