Dock Diving Swimmers Tail

18 May 2014

Hi Laurie

I hope this is a quick question.   A group of labs from Edmonton went to Calgary for Pet Expo last weekend for the Dock Dog competition.   They had to jump in extremely cold water off a dock.   Almost all of them developed tail injuries by that evening.   One of the dogs belongs to an Technician in my practice.   I saw her dog and his tail was swollen, hot and painful from the Coxygeal 2-5 and he could barely lift his tail.  The ligaments all were strained and the joints were swollen and poor glides.    Had the owner traction the tail and we lasered it and put dog on NSAIDs and it is very slowly improving.

What can these labs do in the future to avoid this injury?   I've watched videos of this and the base of the tail takes an amazing hit when the dog hits the water and I'm sure with it being so cold that all muscles were extremely tense and poorly warmed up.   Would a lot of PROM on this tail in the days leading up to the event help?   What about warming the dog up for 15 minutes at a slow jog prior to its jump to get better circulation to the tail.

Appreciate your help Laurie.

JS

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Hi J,

That's amazing!  How fascinating to have such a group develop this issue!

So... as for prevention... total guess, but I would do some overall warm ups as you suggest, jogging, trotting, tug of war, short retrieves from side to side (I'm thinking of things where the dog would also use the tail to help with side to side movement navigation.  10 minutes is likely sufficient!

I would think that the owners could also do some tail pulls, and ROM as well.

Thanks for asking... it's fascinating to be quite honest!

Laurie

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Thanks for getting back to me so fast.  Yeah, this is such a cool injury and to have them all come down with it.   The coccygeal vertebra and surrounding tissues are so ouchy, swollen and painful - never seen anything like it.   We'll take your advise and see how it goes next time.

Thanks again

J