Serious dog people (read: dog nerds) often wear the hat of a sleuth as they dig into their breed’s past, and it is for them that we pass along archaic terms they may encounter in dusty old books. One such term is the grindle tail, also known as a trundle tail (and sometimes seen as trendle tail, trindle tail, trondle tail, or tryndel tail). Sometimes used to refer to low bred dog, more often than not, it described a curly-tailed dog, or a dog with a rounded, curled up tail. Think Samoyed.
The first known use of the term, Trundle-Tail, was in 1486 when it appeared in the Book of St. Albans; it showed up again in 1857 in The Dramatic Works of John Webster in Act III. Scene IV of “Appius and Virginia.”
If your breed has a curly tail, shock and awe your friends by resurrecting this old term!
I am curious how this term compares with “spitz” tail which is what I have always heard that a high tail carriage is referred to as . . .