The American Beagler Forum

I have a Northway/Branko female that has a lot of white on her lower body. She is a tail wagger and after about 5 minutes in the woods she is a bloody mess. I am thinking about taking off part of her tail, since she will never be benched anyway.(Too ugly) What is the best, inexpensive way to do this? I have heard that you can use a castration band. She is 11 months old. I need to know how to do this the correct way. For those that give instructions be explicit. I need to know exactly what type of band and how far up to put it, and how long to keep it on her.

Thanks

Big Dog

Id take her to a vet. Course I like it when they get bloody so id just leave it and keep putting purple lotion on it. Let me know what you find out on that.

Will

Big Dog you may want to take a look at the SPO board - they were talking about this earlier. They seem to all recommend the band, making sure you put it between a joint in the tail and it would fall off in less than 3 weeks. Gook luck. Never done it myself.
-Pete

I think I will just have vet dock it for me. She is a real tail beater, and the way it looks I would have to take off more than an inch or two to stop the problem. Everytime I take her out now she looks like she is going to bleed to death.(LOL)

Big Dog

Kim,
I did it with the casteration bands and it was no problem, I did it to 2 dogs with no problems. It is about 100 dollars cheaper than the vet.
I just use the same tool as the farmers use to do the bull calfs with, slid it down to where I wanted and in about 2 to 3 weeks it is off.

Big Dog, it is common pratice to use the band around this area. I've seen a hundred or more and have not todate seen a problem with the band. You just get a castration band and find someone that has a set of pliers that you apply the band with and put it about an inch below where the tail is worn and bleeding and make sure it's in a joint. It will fall off on it's own in a couple of weeks but that's where it might get infected. After about 8 or 9 days just snip the tail off at the band on the dead end and most of the time it wont even bleed and you can run the dog while it's wearing the band. Leave the band on don't take it off till the tail comes off!

They work great and looks good when the hair grows back. Some dogs may try and chew at the band for a couple of hours but usually by the next morning they will have the tail up and be ready to go.
Hope this helps!
I've found them to be in a lot less pain with the band then with a raw bloody infected tail.

I agree, a band works very easy. you could get them at you local farm and tractor store. I have seen it done severl times and never heard of any problems. Put the band around the nearest joint in the tail closest to the spot you want to dock. I have seen tails docked up to leaving only a few inches, however I have also seen some docked only three or four inchs and that seems to cut down on the bleed, stops it in most cases and it looks better then a fully docked tail. I think a vet in this case is a waste of money and i am not sure that it safer either.

The casteraction band works just apply it between the joints wait about 4 days take a pair of sharp scissors cut the tail off down stream of the band as close as possible. I OWN SEVERAL DOGS ALL TAILS DOCKED DUE TO THE HARSE INVIROMENT IN WHICH THE RUN.

How about doing it on pups??

How do you go about doing it? Seems like it would just be easier to do it to the hole litter next time.

i never did this to any dogs - did almost every milk cow in my barn when i was farming - i think a tail is a tail.. id reccomend doing it in the winter when no flys- i put band between joints - thats it - tail and band would fall off - never has any problems- pete

Pete, what's the reason for docking a cow's tail? I remember as a kid that when the flies got bad, they really relied on their tail to switch the flies off. Not being smart- I just never knew any of the farmers out my way that did this.

for pups: ive docked tails on boxers at 3 days old. all you need is a heavy duty pair of CLEAN scissors. not much blood. snip it and dip the tail in one of the "stop bleed" powders.

Steve C.,
Milk cows have a habit of swatting their tails at you while you're milking them. Doesn't seem to matter whether they have flies on their back or not. Not too big of a deal until it's wintertime when the cows have a frozen mixture of ice,snow and crap on their tails. Then it feels like you're getting hit by a sledghammer. We always tied their tails up with binder twine to keep from getting hit.

Robert: Blackdirt is right - for three day old pups, just cut them off. You can stop the bleeding with the bleed powder but I just seal them with super glue. To each his own but I would only do the ones that were defective or from lines with inferior tails or a real tail beating line. The bands do NOT work well on pups tails - too small or even on adult dogs with tails of smaller diameter.

I used to milk cows also. I remember one summer day this one cow just got up from laying with her tail in the gutter and was really slingin you know what. I tied her tail to a post when I milked her. Got done and let the cows out of the barn and there was that tail, still hangin on the post. I don't recommend this method for beagles.