I have a beautiful female puppy here who is seven weeks old. She has lovely features overall --- except for a tendency to carry her tail curled over her back. Since she's the only female in the litter, there are no other options for me. Her grandsire carried his tail a bit high but not as high as she does. Knowing that, would you place her or keep her and pray for the best?

If everything else is what I want I would run her on for a while , even if her tail was a bit to high she may make an excellent brood bitch, but if you can repeat the breeding easily I might pass on her my self I can't stand a bad tail set but that is me.....but still would hold on to her and wait and see what happens

It would depend on a few things I guess like if I were able to repeat the breeding, how nice the litter was as a whole, how much I had put into the litter, etc, but I would probably tend not to keep the pup.

Tail set & carrage is a very instrumental part in the perfomance of the dog as a retriever, if the tail set or carrage were only slightly off, I might not worry much, however, if it was a significant and noticable difference, I would think twice--especially if it might be hereditary, and not from an injury.

sometimes.

This was my Shanny's tail at 7 weeks.

http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q15/kelrobin/puppy-tail.jpg

This is what her tail looks like now.

http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q15/kelrobin/adult-tail.jpg

So there is hope. Not always, but sometimes. That said, I had a dog whose tail went up when they sexually matured and it hasn't come down. :(

Part of the fun of breeding, I guess.

I had a boy pup with the same problem. He was lovely otherwise so I ran him on. Unfortunately, the tail only got worse so I placed him at 5 months!

Wow, that is a remarkable difference. How long did it take for the tail carrage to change?

To the OP, I guess maybe I would keep the pup and hope it changed, but if not, I'd be prepaired to place anyway. It all depends on if a person's willing to either breed a dog with that kind of tail, OR if they are willing to put all the time in and have it maybe not change and still have to place it later on.

In any case, good luck! :)

I had repeated the breeding since I sold them all as pets the first time. Then I saw one of the pups at 4 months at the tail was straight off the back. I really liked the breeding and was sick at the tails so I repeated it and kept her. Sure enough, the tail came down at 4 months. She's got an awesome otter tail.

I've had them look great at 8 weeks and go up at 8 months! I've found you can't tell when they're puppies. JMO

If you have everything else you want try running the puppy on. It's best to figure that you have a 50-50 chance of it getting better or worse. If you don't have all you want, place the puppy. G.L.

If it were me before reading this, I would be hesitant. After seeing the pictures Laura posted, I would have more hope than usual.

I have a boy who did this as a pup, tail is down and straight now.
Can't say it will happen everytime, have had it the opposite as well, but it's worth a shot if you have room!