Dog Tangles with Porcupine, Later Dies

September 23, 2008 | By Amy Lieberman

A dog recently died from complications associated with porcupine quills (Pet Pulse Photo Illustration by Mike Lloyd)

AUGUSTA, Kan. -- It isn't every day a porcupine punctures a dog with its quills, Dr. Douglas Nielson says, and owners -- and their dogs -- should be thankful.

"It's a horrific, hideous way to die," Nielson said.

Nielson, a veterinarian in Augusta, Kan., can't verify that information with firsthand experience, but is able to convey the "genuine and horribly sincere pain" he has seen in a few affected, unlucky dogs.

In the past few months, Nielson has treated three dogs who got a little too curious about the prickly rodents.

While a porcupine's quills do not contain any venom and are not fatal, if left embedded and untreated for too long, their effects may prove deadly.

And for one dog who recently came to Nielson hours after the attack, it was too late.

"One guy came in with his dog early in the morning and we just gave the dog a ton of anesthetics and treated him, and he went home fine," Nielson said. "But then after work, the guy came back with his other dog, who apparently had had quills in him, too. It had been eight or nine hours before the dog came here, and he died."

When a porcupine leaves hundreds of quills in a dog's mouth and tongue, if left untreated, the dog can suffer from dehydration, as it is unable to swallow.

Run-ins with porcupines can't always be avoided, or predicted.

"It's just dogs checking something out, and porcupines can usually sense when there is some sort of imminent danger," Nielson said.

"The dogs might try to get closer to or bite the porcupine and then they get quills in their faces, and it hurts, so they bite the porcupine again, and again."

While porcupines don't shoot their quills at predators, they do raise them if threatened. Porcupines possess over 30,000 quills on their body, according to The Augusta Gazette, and can dig the hooked quills at least 1-inch into a predator's body.

The porcupine is one of the largest rodents in North America, and usually weigh between eight to 14 pounds.

Nielson says he sees cases like this "every few years," and even though porcupines are native to the United States' central plains region, it isn't a "major problem."

"Porcupines aren't climbing into dog pens or anything. It's just something that happens sometimes.

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The Augusta Gazette contributed to this article.