Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs Bloody tail tip

My English pointer always ends up with the tip of her tail bloodied at the end of a hunt from her crawling through briars. It's a nusiance when she gets back home and the wife doesn't want the dog in the house because she gets blood smears on things. I know it's off the wall, but has anyone found a way to prevent them from getting their tails cut up?

Tie the American Flag on to the pointer's tail or just cut it off and call it a German Shorthair !! Done all the time. Seriously though, I've never had a wife complain as all 7 have been my hunting buddies. No really, anything you put on the tail is going to be torn off by the briars. Can't tape anything onto the hair as you'd soon have a hairless tailed dog and one pissed off dog at that ! A friend had a Lab that had to have its tail cut short for the same reason as you're experiencing. If your pointer doesn't hold its tail high in the air you're best off hunting other types of cover. Probably not possible to have a lot of choices of types of cover so I really think you're caught in a catch 22 situation. Any body else have any ideas ???

If you cut it off you can only wholesale her.... no way to retail her then... Keep her outside, that is where most good hunting dogs are kept...

I had one in the 80's that never had a healed tail as I hunted him too much.. He would have blood on his flanks after a hard day in the field... Wasn't too sightly, but a long way from his heart and if I could get more like him, I would let them all bleed..