It was one of the scariest
things Peggy Gamblin had ever experienced. During the night, her
two dogs,
Bentley Nicole and Bullwinkle, had gone wandering around her
property in Brown County, Texas, and encountered a porcupine on
their turf.
When Gamblin found her dogs
cowering in pain the next morning, there was no question who won
the fight.
A single porcupine can have
upwards of 30,000 quills, making the gentle herbivore a fierce
enemy when frightened — and Gamblin’s dogs found out the hard
way.
Gamblin rushed her pups to the
vet, where it took over an hour and a half to remove hundreds of
quills. Bullwinkle, a Boston terrier, is on the mend, but he's
still recovering from the unpleasant encounter.
“It was very scary and we are
still going to the vet once a week because he got a staph
infection,” Gamblin told The Dodo. “He is doing better.”
As Gamblin found out, it’s not
uncommon for dogs to have
run-ins with porcupines— especially in the summer.
Wikimedia Commons/Sandy Brown Jensen
Longer daylight hours and mild
evening temperatures mean that dogs often stay outside later,
explains Dr. Jennifer Gorman, a veterinarian at DoveLewis Veterinary Emergency and
Specialty Hospital in Portland, Oregon. But running into
the wrong critter at dusk or dawn, when porcupines are most active,
can result in a painful lesson.
“Dogs who are curious about
other animals or protective of their people or territory are most
likely to get quilled,” Gorman tells The Dodo.
So how do dogs actually get
“quilled” by a porcupine?
The prickly rodent is pretty
passive when it comes to defending herself. Covered in soft hair,
the quills are concentrated on their backsides where they lie flat,
but if the
little animal feels threatened, her spikes rise to
attention.
“Contrary to popular belief,
porcupines cannot ‘shoot’ quills from their body,” Gorman says.
“But if a dog approaches a porcupine, the animal may defend itself
with the swipe of a tail. The quills come off very easily and
usually end up sticking to the dog’s face.”
Addie, a beagle who ran into a
porcupine on a hike near her Oregon home |DoveLewis
Veterinary Emergency and Specialty Hospital
If you discover quills
sticking out your dog's muzzle, it’s best to seek veterinary
help immediately. While it may be tempting to try removing them
yourself or cutting the quills shorter, that can often do more harm
than good.
“Quills have tiny barbs at the
end, like a fishhook, which makes them difficult to remove and
actually causes the quill to keep moving deeper into the dog’s skin
tissue or muscle,” Gorman explains. “Trying to remove the quills
without medical expertise, sedation and pain relief medication can
be very painful for your dog and potentially result in an infection
or abscess, as quills carry bacteria.”