Broken Tail ---healing

[KellyM87]

Hi everyone
I have a 2-year-old male setter who I like to trial. We are more weekend warriors than anything, but I enjoy taking him out and having a good time with him. In april he broke his tail. I am not sure how he did it, but I can home for a trial weekend and it was hanging there.... limp. Took him to the vet, gave him a month of and some anti-inflams and pain medicine. After a while he started to point with it straight again, sometimes it would hang a little limp, like if I stacked him up, but on birds in the half hour stakes he showed no issues. Well, now that he is a shooting dog and will be running some hour stakes it is starting to hang real bad at the part where it was broken. Will this heal like it did for running him short amounts? or should I think about getting it "fixed?" Id hate not to trial him because of this stupid little thing.

Kelly

[Sharon]

Tail set does not win a dog a placement in trials but a good tail set adds to the overall appeal of the dog.

Placing in derby and placing in Shooting Dog are two very different things. A shooting dog trial is usually filled with older experienced dogs and handlers. To place is a challenge. and maybe not worth a big surgery effort, unless your dog is extraordinary on birds

If it was me i would try him out in Shooting Dog trials and see what feed back you get from the Judges. If the dog is remarkable on his birds and way of going , a bent tail may not matter.

PS There are SD judges on here . Hopefully they will give their opinion.