Watch Tip for week of Jan. 23:

Be watchful and deliberate when you load your dog into the vehicle. Make sure your dog gets all the way into the vehicle—tail too—before you slam that door shut or you will injure or break the dog’s tail in the door. Amputation might even be necessary. The dog’s pain will be severe and bleeding may be profuse, yet the accident was entirely preventable.

Every rescue dog in our family has scars from an old tail injury

Most of our dogs, present and departed, are (or were) short-hair dogs so you couldn’t miss a scar. One lovely red tail was straight about half-way, then at a knobby joint in the tail, bent left. One butterscotch tail is pudgy about a third of the way and suddenly gets skinny. One mostly white tail had a round bald patch in the middle. One black and white spotted tail had a bald spot AND a slight narrowing of the tail.

I remember when that last one happened. I was in a hurry and as our young Great Dane jumped into the back seat of my old (heavy-built) sedan, I absent-mindedly swung that heavy door shut. Samson let out such a loud bellow inside of the car that I jerked and almost knocked myself out on the top rim of the front door. He was in obvious pain and as you can imagine I was FURIOUS at myself for hurting him. Luckily he didn’t connect his injury with me so he let me examine his tail. Somehow it didn’t break the skin. But the damage was permanent anyway.

Don’t ruin your trip for a preventable reason! Make sure your pets are loaded safely and securely before you set out.