Goodbye 'Happy Tail'

As you know, Zeke acquired a cut to the end of his tail this past July. We have tried and tried and tried to get his tail to heal. He has, what is referred to as, 'happy tail'. Meaning, his tail is so happy it never stops wagging. Which isn't a bad thing, unless the dog has an injured tail. Because of his very happy tail, the wound is constantly being abused, not allowing it to heal. He beats his tail on EVERYTHING! The wound needs air to dry out and scab. We haven't been able to keep it unwrapped, it keeps reopening with every wag. It has been infected many times and he has gone through several courses of antibiotics. The wound has been getting worse.

The end result here is to have his tail amputated. Zeke's surgery is scheduled for this Friday. It's a one day, in and out, procedure. The doctors have assured us it's a fairly simple operation. We are hoping that Zeke will come out of surgery with about 4-5 inches of his tail intact. That's not a lot, considering how long his tail is.

I'm sure that Zeke won't miss his tail all that much. His new look will take some getting used to for us. I'm confident he will still be the happy-go-lucky lab he has always been, just a little less dangerous :P

I will update everyone after surgery and post pictures next week.

Thank you for keeping Zeke in your thoughts. He is a very special dog! :)