Foxtail Seed + Dog Paw = $$$$$$

[4T5GUY]

After all these years and all those dogs I finally learned about Foxtail seeds. I had no idea how bad they are and learned the hard way.

Yesterday I was running my boy in a huge field. It’s been a favorite place for him and many other of our past dogs. This time he came back bleeding heavily from his back right paw. I mean really bleeding. Gushing.

Called the vet and was lucky he was able to get in right away. He had a Foxtail seed that had gone in and turned sideways. The Dr. had a tough time removing it but it’s out. He said it was the biggest one he had ever seen and was going to share the pictures he took with others.

The seed was given to me and I want to share the image of it along with a warning for anyone that, (like me,) was not aware of these nasty plant seeds. They are barbed and keep going in.

Jim

 

[twodog max]

Maybe 30 years ago my first Chocolate Lab, Jake, got a foxtail seed in his paw. It did not bleed much but the vet really had to dig around to get it out.
Yes they can be a hazard but I would not want to stop my dog from getting out.

 

[6518John]

Cockleburs and honey Locust are a curse in these parts. I have seen them both give tractor tire flats. I can’t imagine what they would do to poochie!

 

[Protocall_Design]

We used to have horses that tried to scrape us out of the saddle on Locust trees. I like dirt bikes a lot better.

 

[6518John]

We used to have horses that tried to scrape us out of the saddle on Locust trees. I like dirt bikes a lot better.

My son was teasing an ornery bull one day and the closest tree to climb when the bull got a snoot full of teasing was a honey locust!

I asked my son afterwards what lesson he learned. It was “only tease bulls with a tree with no stickers nearby!”

I had hoped it would be “don’t tease bulls!” At least he is good in football!

 

[swsig]

Foxtails can be fun. When I was growing up in San Diego, I lived in a very hilly neighborhood. The hills were covered with foxtails, and when they dried out, all the neighborhood kids would find large pieces of cardboard and slide down the hills on top of them. The foxtails were dense enough and slick enough so we could hit some pretty high rates of speed on the longer runs. My favorite ride was an abandoned refrigerator box I could climb into and slide down the hill completely blind. I never knew where I was going, or what (or who) I was going to hit. Fun times! By mid-summer we'd worn the foxtails down to the dirt, and you could look around the neighborhood and see the slide trails all over the hills. Of course, we had no snow in San Diego, so cardboard-on-foxtail was known as the "San Diego Toboggan".

 

[hsguy]

Timely post, I have seen photos of dogs that sniffed them and they enter the nose, not pretty. Why Foxtails Are Bad for Dogs and How to Remove Them | PetMD

 

[hemiram]

A friend of mine's old Coonhound/Pit Bull mix had a foxtail seed a couple of times, but his main issue was messing with Porcupines, three of them. Like Dr. Pol said, "They never learn!". I just can't believe that after two previous faces full of quills, he went back and messed with a third one. Weird thing is, he messed with the cat that had been there a year before he came, and a couple of swats later, he didn't mess with him again.

 

[VictorLouis]

...and here I thought goatheads were a nuisance. WOW.

 

[tinkerer]

"cockleburs and honey Locust are a curse in these parts. I have seen them both give tractor tire flats. I can’t imagine what they would do to poochie"

Don't know about poochie, but I can tell you what one of those thorns feels like in my foot - Thru the bottom of the gym shoe I was wearing. Still have the mark on my foot.

 

[Walkin Horse]

A friend of mine got foxtail in a load of horse hay.That was a costly mess for him and his boarders.