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In life, there is a right way and a wrong way to do almost everything and Cheryl Klimack now knows the wrong way to remove porcupine quills from her four-year-old mutt, Dodger.
Klimack, like most pet owners, took her dog to the vet the first time he was pierced with porcupine quills. But the second time Dodger wound up with quills she attempted to take them out at home.
“I laid on him and covered his eyes,” said Klimack, who lives on an acreage south of Brandon. “But he quickly learned what was coming. And as soon as you did that (lay on him) he just went wild.”
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While non-professionals do make these kinds of mistakes when they attempt to remove quills, veterinarian Jay Thrush said it’s acceptable for dog owners to deal with the problem on their own.
“If you’ve got upwards of a dozen (quills), it’s OK to try to remove those at home,” said Thrush, of the Brandon Hills Veterinary Clinic.
Of course, a successful home removal depends on the animal’s temperament, because some dogs aren’t going to remain tranquil as someone yanks spears out of their muzzles.
Since abandoning her “lie on the dog” technique, Klimack had several opportunities to experiment with other methods because porcupines nailed Dodger with quills five times this summer. The trial and error led to her most successful method, where Klimack and members of her family play with Dodger and then deftly pull out a quill when the dog is distracted.
Regardless of approach or distraction method, the best tool to remove a quill is a pair of small needle nose pliers, Thrush said.
“Grasp the porcupine quill as close as possible to where the tip enters the skin. Basically, right up against the skin,” he said. “Then apply steady pressure and pull it straight back. You don’t want to yank on it.”
An alternate technique for difficult-to-remove quills, he said, is to use pliers to grasp the end farthest away from the skin. Then roll the quill across the face of the pliers, which torques the quill out of the dog.
There is always the risk that part of a spear will break off and remain in the dog, Thrush said.
“There are times when we (vets) try to remove a quill and the tip might break off…. So you’ve got a small piece of quill embedded in the skin.”
Such a scenario isn’t a significant risk because like a sliver, the animal’s body will eventually reject the small foreign object and push it out. More concerning are large pieces or whole quills that work their way into the dog.
“They’ll start to migrate… sometimes deeper and deeper,” Thrush said. “I’ve seen quills in an abdominal cavity. Sometimes when we’re doing surgery we’ll find quills in there.”
Of course, prevention is the best way to avoid quills and the potential health complications. Kelsey Eliasson, who lives near Whitehorse, learned last year that an ounce of prevention is essential when it comes to quills.
In the summer of 2010 Eliasson went out for a bike ride at a campground in the Yukon with his two dogs, Milo and Moonunit. During the ride, the two husky-crosses cornered a porcupine by a tree stump and the curious Milo decided to chomp on the pointy animal.
“He bit it and felt the pain. Then he got angry and bit it two or three more times,” Eliasson said.
Milo wound up with more than 200 quills in and around his mouth. Eliasson wound up with a $1,000 vet bill.
A few months later that summer, on a trip to Alaska, a porcupine punctured a still curious Milo with 30 quills. After that incident, Eliasson decided Milo would be on-leash whenever they ventured into the wilderness.
Some dogs have to be leashed because they don’t learn from previous and painful clashes.
“Certainly there are dogs out there that have a taste for porcupine and will get quills over and over again,” said Thrush, who has pulled quills out of certain dogs more than 10 times.
“One of the big theories is that the dog is on such an adrenaline rush when it attacks the porcupine, that it doesn’t actually feel the pain till afterwards. So they don’t associate the pain (with) actually biting the porcupine.”
