Dog tail holes are also referred as ‘tail pockets’. A dog groomer on TikTok explains what they are but not very clearly! He or she says that, “their tails are basically in cavities on their bodies” which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me but a bit of research tells me that many modern dog breeds are covered in wrinkles and that this results in small indentations or pockets located just under the dog’s tail created by a fold or wrinkle of skin. Sometimes these pockets can be on the top of the tail. They look like a dimple on the dog’s butt when you have a close look at it.
Certain dog breeds are more predisposed to have them such as American bulldogs, English bulldogs, French bulldogs and pugs. But not all dogs of these breeds have tail holes!
One website says that you will find tail pockets more often on dogs with “tight, corkscrew tails instead of straight ones.”
You can find out if your dog has a tail whole by running your finger under your dog’s tail to see if there have an extra fold of skin there or not. In some dog breeds such as the Frenchie (French bulldog) they may develop a tail hole after they reach the age of six months. Although they might development when they are fully grown. And some dogs don’t have them.
The key factor is how wrinkly the skin is. The dog groomer I refer to above says that, “Dirt, dead skin, hair, yeast and other debris can build up over time and can cause a foul odour, infection and discomfort et cetera”. I have reworded that slightly!
It is important, therefore, they say, to “wash the area with soap and water at least once a month and dry the area thoroughly afterwards. You can use dog wipes weekly”. I’ve also reworded that slightly as well to make it a bit clearer.
I hope this helps. I suspect that quite a lot of dog owners of these dogs that are prone to tail holes don’t clean these areas regular as suggested and they do indeed become infected causing discomfort to the dog and creating a foul smell. So, I think this little article is quite important for those people if they pick it up on Google.
A lot of people during Covid-19 adopted dogs to keep them company. But I sense that they didn’t really prepare themselves properly for looking after a dog because they adopted the dog on impulse thinking that it was a great moment to do it during those long periods of lockdown. And now they are learning how to look after the dog and that can be a bit of a struggle.
It is said that a lot of dogs bought during Covid were improperly socialised in the first place because they were bred by puppy mill owners. To this problem you have to add the problem that the owners were not fully prepared and were inexperienced in dog ownership. This has resulted in many dogs in the UK being relinquished or abandoned to others and that process in itself is likely to cause further psychological problems in a dog. Not a happy situation.
