Bandaging the tail

Video 33 of 55
4 min 0 sec
English
English
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Tail injuries can come in different forms and they can be from trauma from being hit by a car or getting your tail stuck underneath something. They can also be from a bite wound and they can cause quite nasty bleeding wounds or infected wounds that you may need to bandage, again, before you get seen by the vets. There are two types of tail injuries or two places where the injury can occur and may just be along the tail, the length of the tail somewhere, or you could have an amputation wounds where you have had potentially the end of the tail caught and the animal was moved and that that tail has actually ripped off of the end here or opened up the end of the tail.

So depending on where the wound is, you are going to bandage it slightly differently. We will start off with the tail amputation or end of tail wound. So with these, need to make sure you always have a dressing that is appropriate for the size of the wound. So I would initially, on this one, use your dressing like this, and then with your bandage material, you are going to try your best to hold that dressing on. Tails, as with feet, they do move quite a lot and so the animal will probably try and get the dressing off or wag their tail and it will come off. For that reason, you want to make sure that you are banging far enough up to try and get some grip and to make sure that that bandage stays on. If you just literally bandaged the tip of the tail, it will fly off very, very quickly.

So I would start by bandaging over, change direction, bandage back over the end there making sure it is not caught on that part of it, and then you are going to start wrapping rounds. So these lengths are just going to help you keep that bandage on. When you are bandaging around, you want to make sure that you are just filling in any gaps that are left either side of the tail and then bandage up towards the main part of the body. That will probably be sufficient for this dog. Rip your vet wrap as you can. If you find the bandage is slipping straight off, you can use a different stickier bandage material like Elastoplast, just around the top there, and that will help that bandage then stick to the fur. You do not want to be using that kind of bandage all over the tail because it does not stick to itself, it sticks to the fur, and at some point you are going to have to remove that bandage, which is really uncomfortable for the animal. So if you are going to use something more sticky around the top of the bandage, you only use it around the top.

If you have a wound higher up the tail, see how easily these bandages come off. If you have an injury higher up the tail, you will just be placing your dressing where the injury is. So say, the injury is around here on this dog, you are going to start your bandage on this end, so the end away from the body and bandage up towards the body. So I would just start with this one, covering half the dressing and half the furred area and bandage up. It does not have to go too far because you have got less of a slip risk because it is not right at the end of the tail. You do want to make sure that that is covering enough and giving yourself a distance so that if it does try to slip, it is still going to be covering the wound.

You do not want to bandage too high up because you have some important areas up here. You do not want the bandage to be coming into contact with the anus where it could be getting covered in fecal material. So as long as you can keep them clean and dry for the time that they need to stay on, that is fine. If they do become soiled for any reason, you are better to remove the bandage and place another one or leave one off.