"Don't worry. Be happy!"
Tootsie went to the Dr. today. She was to get spayed and have her tail looked at. The spay part was easy. The tail however, was a different matter.

You see, the tip of her tail was raw, dried, chapped, bleeding and missing hair. It appeared that there may have been one of those bizarre skin mites or some such deal. The vet said she would look into it.

Well shortly after 10:00 a.m. I received a call from the Vet informing me that Tootsie was sedated and about to be "fixed". Specifically she called to tell me that Tootsie did not have a skin mite as we suspected. Instead she had a case of "Happy Tail". Yep, that's right, "Happy Tail".

Simply put, Happy Tail is the result of wagging a tail with such enthusiasm and gusto, so many times, so fast into any non-moble object such as walls, shelfs, people, cars, trees, doors and walls (again). The banging of this "happy tail" against these objects bruises the tail and splits it open. Tootsie then licks it, and it dries out, chaps and hair falls out. The entire process repeats itself and basically leaves the tip of the tail bald.

So what do we do?

The vet says we bandage it, which may not work becuase the tip of the tail is conical and the bandage will fall off (if the dog doesn't chew it off). Or, we could have her tail cropped a few inches in which case she'll take a little while to heal unless she rubs her butt against the walls.

For clarification I asked, "if she rubs her butt against the wall and her butt get's chaffed, would that be "Happy Butt"? The vet laughed and said "I suppose so".

"And what do we do then?" I asked. "Crop her butt?". Still more laughter from the vet.

Tootsie now has a six inch tail. The fate of her butt is TBD.

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