Tail Amputation, Need Advice!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Valencia

Valencia

Boxer Pal
I am the very proud mom to Jody, a 3 yo neutered male. Jody is a typical fun, happy, robustly energetic boxer. We found a lump on him, under his eye, about a month ago; the vet removed it, biopsied it, and told us it was a hystiocytoma. Two weeks ago, we found a bigger and uglier lump on the end of his tail stump (which, fortunately, is longer than the average dock, it's about 3 inches long.) The vet removed that lump as well, and the biopsy showed it to be a mast cell tumor. She felt like she had clean margins, but suggested we see an oncologist. Two weeks later, the tail is not healing well. We visited the oncologist last night; she feels the prognosis is good, as the lump was a stage 1 and clearly defined, and the removal went well, and left clear margins. However, she also said she would feel more "comfortable" had more of the tail been removed; also, she said removing more of the bone and leaving more of the tissue will help leave more room for healing, given how energetic a boxer tail is.

The good news is that is tail IS longer than most, so he will have a cute docked tail post-op (not that that is a reason for or against surgery). The other good news is that I don't think the tumor can return in the same spot, since that spot will be gone. More good news is that Jody thinks going to the vet is the equivilant to a kid going to a theme-park, so this doesn't seem to be stressing him out at all.

My questions are: has anyone had an adult-docking of the tail, and how was the pain, and the healing process? Would any of you do this surgery, given that it isn't "mandatory"? Has anyone else ever had a lump on the very end of the stump? (I found this to be the oddest spot for a lump to grow, I don't know why.) I would really appreciate any feedback, I am mostly convinced to do the surgery, but I just want to know I am doing the right thing for my sweet baby boy.
 
ssleighter

ssleighter

Completely Boxer Crazy
I am sure I will need to justify this with the whole story, but that's okay because you asked and I am here to offer advice. We had a natural tailed boxer come into our rescue about a year ago. Baxter is a VERY happy, large male and his tail would wag constantly. We learned the hard way that that isn't necessarily a good thing if they're in a wire crate. Not dealing with tails on a regular basis, I certainly had no idea an injury like that could occur.

Anyway, he injured the tip of his tail and had a sore about the size of a dime at the tip. It wouldn't heal. No matter what we did, how we bandaged it, nothing made a difference.

Now, picture if you will, a really happy boxer with a wound on the tip of his constantly wagging tail that bled profusely. The entire foster home and the interior of her VW Bug looked like a crime scene. The blood would just fly off the end of his little happy tail.

The first vet we took him too tried to bandage it, but after that didn't work he recommended amputation. Not being too keen on this particular vet, we took Baxter to my personal vet, who I view as some sort of God in scrubs. ;) She also recommended amputation. Her reasoning was that the wound was becoming infected and that infection in that area would be almost impossible to get under control if we couldn't even heal the wound. It had been about 3 weeks from the initial injury and it had only gotten worse during that time. She referred to it as "Happy Tail Syndrome" and had actually performed amputations on labs for this problem. Who knew?

Well, anyway, the amputation went fine. The pain was obvious the first few days, but we used Rimadyl until the staples were removed.

I would go with your vets recommendation. I think it's a small price to pay for making sure all of the cancer is gone. Jody will be a little uncomfortable for a few days, but nothing compared to chemo or radiation should the cancer spread.

Good luck and I am sending Jody lots of healing boxer vibes.
 
K

KonaKoffe

Boxer Pal
ssleighter said:
I would go with your vets recommendation. I think it's a small price to pay for making sure all of the cancer is gone. Jody will be a little uncomfortable for a few days, but nothing compared to chemo or radiation should the cancer spread.

Good luck and I am sending Jody lots of healing boxer vibes.
Click to expand...


Yup, I agree to go with the vets recommendation considering the risk of not. Cancer is harder to deal with than a redocked tail.
 
Dunkin

Dunkin

Boxer Insane
I had a weenie dog one time that broke his back. My Vet. got him thru that but when the feeling started coming back he chewed his tail. The vet had to cut it off to keep out the infection. He did great he was up playing just a few hours later. ....Sending good thoughts your way.......
 
L

Lancerella

Boxer Booster
Sending Jodi a lot of ~~~~~~~~~~ healing vibes~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
Hope everything goes well with the surgery and you can have peace of mind.
Please keep us posted of how he is doing.
Warm wishes,
Karin
 
Valencia

Valencia

Boxer Pal
Thanks, you guys, I really appreciate it. I feel better knowing that I am making the right decision. I, too, feel it is a small price to pay in the big scheme of things. I hope my vet will give a script for Rimadyl, I will make sure I specifically ask for it. SSleighter, thank you so much for sharing your story, I really does help. :) I will keep you all posted on our progress.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top