OK -- kinda long (and gross in parts), but with a happy ending...
I used to live in Austin with my best friend and her two HUGE, NEEDY Basset Hounds. The older male, Cronkite, had some arthritis, and I'd spend a good amount of time massaging him (which he LOVED). Anyway, the arthritis made it hard for him to get down the stairs to the backyard to go outside and do his bidness, and he developed this weird habit of going to the second stair and stopping. So, you'd have to stand there with the door open until he made it all the way down the stairs, because he was nearly 6-ft long from his nose to the end of his tail.
So, one lovely Austin afternoon, he came and found me and made the "gotta pee now" face and gesture, and I let him out. Only this day, he didn't stop at the second step, instead bounding all the way down and stopping on the last (fourth) step. I thought, "Wow - he's feeling good today!!!" and closed the door. Or tried to. It was an old house, and the door stuck sometimes, so I firmly pushed it all the way closed.
I heard a "YELP!!!", and looked out the door's window to see the dog clawing at the bottom step and ground, trying to get away from the door, but not moving. I thought, "What the hell?", and looked down to see the tip of his tail (about 3 inches) stuck in the bottom of the door.
So, of course, I freaked and yanked the door open, ripping the skin and fur almost completely off the end of his tail. I say "almost", because the skin came off and was left dangling underneath. "Mortified" doesn't even describe how I felt. I jumped down down the stairs, and carried him back into the house. He weighed at least 100 pounds, but I didn't even notice as I scooped him up into the kitchen.
I screamed for my roommate, and she came running. The dog didn't seem to be in pain, just really shocked, especially that I had lifted him like that. And when he saw his Mama, he of course started wagging his tail (which I was desperately trying to piece back together), slinging blood ALL OVER me, the back half of the kitchen, and the female Basset that had come running to see what all the excitement was.
So anyway, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the Animal ER, getting the tip of his tail sewn back on. When I walked into the ER with my neck, arms & clothes streaked in Basset blood, the vet assistants behind the counter freaked and ran over, thinking the dog MUST have multiple puncture wounds or a severe gash or something... And when I told them it was only his tail, they didn't believe me at first, despite the huge bandage I had wrapped around the end of it.
But he was fine in the end, and didn't hold a grudge, and I was glad. And, from that day forward, when he had to/wanted to go outside, he didn't stop on the stairs ever again. He went all the way down to the ground. And neither me or my roommate closed the door until he (or the other dog, for that matter) was all the way to the bottom.
Here's a link to some pictures of him:
http://clicheideas.com/Cronkite/index.htm
You can see how big he was in the "Attacking Mama in the morning" pic on the first page. And yes, that's me in the "Puppies must put up with many indignities" pic, circa 1989 when he (and I) were both just puppies.
