Forgot to mention in the last post the other weirdness that happened recently. I had taken Mojito to the lake to fetch, as usual, and everything was normal during and right afterwards.
But a few hours later, Mojito seemed to be in a lot of discomfort, panting and apparently unable to find a comfortable position. I took him out for a walk and noticed he was walking strangely--his hips looked very stiff and his tail was hanging straight down and not moving at all. He looked really sad and pathetic.
A few hours later, he seemed even more uncomfortable. I was hoping I wouldn't have to rack up an emergency vet bill in the wee hours. I started Googling his symptoms, not expecting to find anything, and lo and behold, lots of other people had discussed this. Apparently, (almost exclusively) retrievers can get this after they've overexerted and/or been in cold water. It apparently doesn't matter whether they go in the water regularly or not (Mojito goes a few times a week).
It's called Dead Tail (very apt description of how it looked), or Cold Tail, even though apparently it has to do technically with their hip or back muscles, not the tail per se. All the discussions said a lot of vets aren't even familiar with it, and that it resolves itself in a few days, and sure enough, day by day, his tail got higher until it's back to its usual upright plume now.
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3 comments:
Garrett and Mojito are totally in sync. The day after MrG showed off his new diving techniques in the ditch to Moji he and his usually perky tail drooped. He also couldn't poop, lifting the tail being so *ahem* intrinsically necessary. A couple of days later he was fine.
Wait. I'm sure I told you about it. How ironic that the very same thing happened to Mo.
nice blog!
thank God. You do not need any 'issues'.
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