Naya
Moderator
- Location
- Bristol, UK
How is Merlin today @MellowYellow ?
Cold water tail
- Thread starter MellowYellow
- Start date
That certainly sounds like cold water tail... good that he has no pain! Apparently it is caused by the muscles in the lower back going into spasm, this can be due to cold / wet or even due to an excess of tail wagging!@MellowYellow glad to hear Merlin is back in good shape again.
Do you know if dogs can get cold water tail without the pain factor? Carbon's tail will sometimes go all limp with a big kink in it (if that makes sense) but thank goodness doesn't have the associated pain. His tail seems to go back to normal in a couple days and he's not bothered at all. Because of that, I've never asked the vet about it. And well...not having had Labrador with a tail before, I just assumed their tails wilted in cold water!
Back to his normal exuberant self, thank you for asking Naya!
Emily_Babbelhund
Mama Red HOT Pepper
- Location
- Regensburg, Germany
- Location
- Andorra and Spain
Poor Merlin! Both the twins have had limber tail a couple of times, and once it was due to a full day of excessive wagging 
So great that you were able to get him to the vet for that treatment so quickly. These things so often seem to happen during emergency hours (ask me how I know .... actually, don't
)
So great that you were able to get him to the vet for that treatment so quickly. These things so often seem to happen during emergency hours (ask me how I know .... actually, don't
)
- Location
- Malvern Worcestershire
Don't talk to me about emergency vets! Not that I have had to use one yet, but my nearest one ran out of vets and was sending patients 38 miles away! It is a real concern, no vets here do out of hours any more, if a dog had a gastric torsion, could be dead by the time you got to emergency vet. If dog/cat was operated on during the night, then you have to fetch them and take them to your own vet by 8am!Poor Merlin! Both the twins have had limber tail a couple of times, and once it was due to a full day of excessive wagging
So great that you were able to get him to the vet for that treatment so quickly. These things so often seem to happen during emergency hours (ask me how I know .... actually, don't
- Location
- Andorra and Spain
Yeah, it was a gastric torsion here. Talia, two nights ago. She's fine. Natalie's emergency vet cover is well over an hour's drive from her. Happily, my vet runs her own emergency hours, and so we got her in there and sorted.
- Location
- Malvern Worcestershire
Poor Talia, what a relief you managed to get her to your vet. It is a very painful and dangerous problem.
Jacqui-S
Moderator
- Location
- Fife, Scotland
Oh no 
Emily_Babbelhund
Mama Red HOT Pepper
- Location
- Regensburg, Germany
That's so scary - gastric torsion is horrible. So glad all turned out ok.
Oh my god, that is my nightmare. My sister's old dog (Bones' brother) died of gastric torsion, actually on the vet's table. Thank god you got her there in time. What were her symptoms, @snowbunny?
- Location
- Andorra and Spain
Well, she’s on her holidays with Natalie at the moment, but luckily she’s a very experienced dog person. The first I knew of it was a call where she said, “I think we have a bloat situation”, so I got on the phone to my vet and arranged to meet them there.
Natalie said her abdomen was very swollen quite suddenly and she was straining. She said that, if she didn’t know better, she would have assumed Talia was in labour. By the time she got to the vet, her stomach was less swollen, but her chest area was very much so.
She had x-rays which showed that she had had a twist but it had self-corrected, but her stomach and gut were full of gas caused by food fermenting in her stomach. She avoided surgery but had a tube sent down to remove the food and gas.
It’s something that’s probably down to her age and size, as she doesn’t eat much at all, but because it’s happened once, it’s more likely to happen again in the future. We’ve changed her now to a commercial raw food because that’s less likely to ferment in her gut.