Monday, July 14, 2008

Emotionally attached...

to a dog's tail.

Notice anything different about Ralphie? Here's a hint...

http://herringbones.blogspot.com/2008/04/we-call-this-happy-tail.html

his tail used to be about 7" longer than it is now. Yep, it was docked on Friday after MUCH discussion, research and many tears on my part. The end just wouldn't heal and it was starting to get infected. Ralphie hasn't missed a beat since the surgery...I, on the other hand, my need long term therapy.

I'm so anti docking and cropping that it's hard for me to truly be okay with our decision...even though it was for a medical reason and even though I KNOW it was the best decision for Ralphie. Pit bull docks and crops are generally done to make the dog look more bad ass...and that is generally the result. Ralphie still has half a tail...so I guess that makes him only half a bad ass, right?

1 comment:

Hilary said...

My brown lab Gracie was in the same position as Ralphie. She had been terribly abused and when we rescued her, the end of her tail was raw and sick. We did everything we could to get it to heal, but to no avail. One morning about five weeks after we got her, she woke us up crying. We took her to the vet and her temperature was 107. The tail came off that day and she was immediately healthier. Now she has the cutest little seven inch stubby tail.
I don't like the idea of surgically altering a dog's appearance either, but in her case, there was no way she was going to survive without it. They had to remove a majority of her tail because of a blood infection that would have continued to make her sick.
I hope that Ralphie's tail heals well and he feels better now that his 'ouchie tail' is gone.