Porcupine Quills

Dear Dr. Jody:  Our Labrador retriever, Harley, seems to have a run-in with a porcupine at least once a year.  What is the best way for us to remove these quills?  Does it help to cut the tips off the quills first before gently removing them with pliers?

“Porcupine season” is definitely upon us.  We see a dramatic increase in the number of porcupine quill cases every autumn, and so far, this year is no exception. 

October seems to be the time of year when well-meaning dog owners bring us their porcupine-prickled pooch after having already attempted to remove the quills at home.  This frequently results in quill breakage.  And, contrary to popular belief, cutting the ends off the quills or breaking them before removal does not make them easier to remove.  In fact, broken or snipped quills are actually significantly more difficult for veterinary staff to extract, since tugging on a quill activates the barbed tips to drive the quill deeper into the skin.

Yes, unfortunately porcupine quill tips are barbed.  For this reason, they are very painful to pull out.  You would not want someone to remove a barbed fish hook from your skin by pulling backwards.  Take it from someone who has had quills lodged in her own skin; pulling porcupine quills from a conscious animal is incredibly painful. 

We are commonly presented with dogs who received a face full of quills several days or weeks earlier.  The owner removed all of the quills, or so they thought, but any that remained had long since migrated deeper into the tissues where they can create very painful abscesses.  These pus-filled swellings often have a piece of quill within them.  Unfortunately, even under anesthesia, it can be very difficult to actually locate the quill fragment without causing severe tissue trauma.  Often, all we can do at this point is lance and flush out the abscess and initiate pain medications and antibiotics.  These lost fragments of quill can continue to migrate and cause abscesses throughout the body. 

Migrating quills have been known to penetrate vital organs, including the heart, gastrointestinal tract, and even the brain.  Of course, such events are sadly fatal.  These tragic consequences can occur months or even years after the porcupine experience.  And because porcupine quills are made from the same material as hair, they do not show up on an x-ray.  This makes it impossible to identify or locate migrating quills. 

Sometimes a migrating quill will reappear on the surface.  Even these quills that we can actually feel or see poking through the skin are frustratingly difficult to extract, since quills absorb water on their migration and swell up.  This makes them more difficult to pull through tight skin without breaking.  They also become much weaker and softer when under the skin for even a few days, but no less barbed.  Even very gentle handling by trained veterinary staff can frequently result in the quill coming out partway and then snapping off beneath the surface.  The remaining fragment is usually not retrievable.

If your dog has suddenly become an unwilling pin cushion, please bring him to your veterinarian immediately.  Anesthesia is the only humane way to remove these painful barbed little spikes.  It allows your veterinarian to ensure that there are no quills hiding in hard-to-reach but common locations such as the nasal cavity and behind the tonsils, and gives us the opportunity to start your pet on antibiotics and pain medication.  Nobody sterilized the porcupine quills before they entered your dog’s body, so antibiotics are fundamental in minimizing post-quill infections.  As well, the likelihood of removing all of the quills is significantly higher if we are working on a cooperative sleeping patient that is not wiggling and squirming with anxiety and pain.