Pebbles - Tail Amputation
We were called to see Pebbles the day after she had arrived at her new owners’ yard. She had been very dirty when she arrived so was treated to a full body shampoo, but whilst doing this, her new owner had noticed that her dock was very smelly and was oozing pus-like material.
Careful examination of the tail revealed that the end of the dock was cold and hard with no feeling but the middle section of her tail was very smelly and soft; her tail had obviously been severely damaged around halfway down the dock and the end was basically dying away. We recommended amputation of the end of the tail to remove the dying tissue.
Pebbles came to the clinic the following day; she was sedated and we performed an epidural anaesthetic – this allowed us to operate with Pebbles standing (so avoiding the risks of a general anaesthetic) but ensured that she could not feel her tail.
The whole tail was clipped to prepare for the surgery – exposing the dead, black end of the dock, and an infected band around the tail that was soft and squidgy and from where the extremely smelly pus was oozing.
The surgery removed the dead tissue, the dying smelly area and a small portion of normal dock – we needed to get right back to healthy, normal tissue to ensure that the wound would heal well.
Pebbles was given antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and went home the following day. After a week of gentle hacking, Pebbles returned to full work. The wound has healed very well and Pebbles seems unaffected by her stumpy tail.
Her new owner later discovered that around a month prior to her purchase, Pebbles had had a very tight tail bandage left on by one of her previous owners. This must have stopped the blood supply to the end of her tail, resulting in the awful injury shown in the photos.
