Anyone know if Bactine is safe for dogs?
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I know nothing about dogs, but if she has been chewing her tail you wouldn't want to put anything on there that might harm her if ingested. With my goats with wounds I usually coat them with neosporin and a spray bandage to keep the insects off. But they don't chew on them and if it is in an area they can lick I will only clean the wound because their saliva will help the healing. In the case of your dog, can you perhaps wash her tail with peroxide to disinfect? After all, it breaks down to just water very quickly so would not be dangerous to ingest. Is she patient enough that you can look to see what may be irritating the tail? Is there anything you can do about the irritation? Perhaps bathing it in a pet shampoo with lanolin or similar skin softener?
I washed it twice with watered down dog shampoo. She's HATES getting a bath, so I had to hide the shampoo bottle because she recognized it. The vet said before not to put peroxide on dog cuts. For some reason he said it forces bacteria into the cut. It looks better today so I might just wash it daily and see what happens.
My understanding is that tail chewing is a sign of anxiousness or irritation, so perhaps even working with her will help calm her. Certainly washing the cut will help keep scabbing from become itchy. And certainly her licking her tail will help with the healing process by keeping it clean. I'm surprised about the vet's comment about peroxide, but he is the vet, I'm not :^) But if it does start getting infected make sure you get her in for antibiotics.
I was doing shops in another town today so I went into their emergency vet. They gave me an antiseptic spray made for dogs. I think between the spray and the cleaning, she will be fine. The infection seems to be gone. She's such a big moose though that I worry when something's wrong because no one wants to work on her.
Understood. The only vet who works on goats around me is 50+ miles away and his solution to anything is "put him/her down". Thus our medical "treatment plan" is seat-of-the-pants, do-it-yourself and ask a lot of questions on the appropriate forums. My thighs are currently sporting a beautiful pair of horn print bruises because I needed to deal with getting meds in by mouth yesterday and the best way to do that is to straddle the goat and force her mouth open to squirt in the nasty tasting stuff. She is doing about 75% better today but chose to thrust her head back instead of down when she tasted the medicine, thus the horn gouges in the thighs.
Ouch! That sounds sort of like how I give my dog medicine, but luckily she is sans horns. Do you raise goats or just have one as a pet?
We raise them, but somehow they seem to turn into pets most of the time 
Giving meds to critters is not easy. My vet comes from a family of farm vets, old time, old school. To me, he's a magician. He's tried and tried and tried to show me how to hold the animal's head "like a softball", opening the mouth and inserting medicine, liquid or tablet, with the other. It is so easy for him, and never at all for me.
That is why I straddle the goats. That keeps both hands free and one hand goes between the lips at the cheek, which causes them to open up, while the other squirts in the med. I try to just be very businesslike about it. They know when I throw a leg over their back that this ain't gonna be fun, but it beats the heck out of fighting them. There usually is a little treat in my pocket for them afterwards as sort of an apology so they do continue to trust me.
Flash Wrote:
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> They know when I throw a leg over their back that this ain't gonna be fun,
OMG, I'm still laughing.
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> They know when I throw a leg over their back that this ain't gonna be fun,
OMG, I'm still laughing.
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