A Tale of a Tail

My beautiful Casey. It's been just over 6 months since she died. Feels like yesterday sometimes. She is missed beyond words. So instead of ruminating on how much I miss her, I'll tell my favorite "Casey Story" of all time: "How Casey Lost Her Tail"

As a young dog, Casey had THE most gorgeous tail ever...or so we all remember. It was overly long, thick and full of flamboyance.

One season, our local, and very abundant, red fox population had a massive mange outbreak...and of course Casey was unlucky enough to contract it with them. She frequently visited the foxes rendezvous and den sites...peeing on things and probably rolling in things she shouldn't.

The mange itself was quickly and easily treated. But then again, nothing was really "easy" about living with Casey. So in a very "Casey-like" move, one night she swiftly and efficiently chewed all the hair off of her once beautiful tail.

Nice. Nice and ugly. And not only ugly, but raw, scabby, and refusing to heal. The mange itself wasn't the problem...the mites were gone and the only part of her body that was still showing signs that she'd even had mange was her tail. And this was because she kept wagging her tail and whacking it on the walls and tables, which was preventing it from healing properly. We worked with the vet and tried everything we could think of. But how do get your dog to NOT wag her tail, short of tying it to her body? Trust me, we considered it.

It wasn't looking good. We even talked about maybe needing to dock her tail if we couldn't get her to stop beating it up constantly. She must have heard us talking.

My parents came home one day, and, as usual, Casey excitedly greeted them at the door. Except THIS time she excitedly greeted them while also spurting copious amounts of blood from the stump that used to be her long gorgeous tail. What the hell??!!

If you hear my dad tell the story, he thought people had been killed inside the house and Casey was the sole survivor of some horrible murder...the house looked like the Manson Family Massacre had occurred. In fact, a massacre DID occur there...Casey massacred her own tail.

There was blood everywhere...on the walls, on the floors, and a HUGE pool of blood in the living room. And she kept spurting blood as she wiggled her butt and wagged what was left of her tail...spraying blood from the living room, through the hallway and straight into the garage...greeting my parents while acting quite proud of herself. With the sheer volume of blood they found, they were certain she was going to die of blood-loss, or at least go in shock. My dad hurried her into her crate and rushed her off to the vet, where she confirmed that, yes indeed, Casey chewed her own tail off. And if that wasn't bad enough, no one could find her tail. Yes...that's right...Casey ATE her own tail. Maybe she was just getting rid of the evidence?

The vet stabilized her and the next day finished the job Casey started...docking her tail at a more appropriate length. Her gorgeous tail was no more and from that day forth she was destined to do butt wiggles instead of full body tail wags.

In her 14 years, Casey had many such stories...some horror, some hilarity, some just down-right stupid. She wasn't always the easiest dog to live with, but she left me a huge book of stories to always remember her by. Good girl :)