Sometimes retrieving practice needs to be canceled!

Al Hansen

Al Hansen

Well-known member
About 10 to 12 years ago, Bev and I took a couple of our dogs, jumped in the truck and took off for Escondida Lake which is just north of Socorro, NM. Our dogs new exactly what they were going to be doing and were getting excited the closer we got to the lake. Once there we all had fun. Bev was doing the training and I was trying to take pictures. On one toss she had thrown two bumpers and we were anticipating some challenges of who might go after which bumper. We had my old hunting dog Chili and a new chocolate that we had been working with called Cayenne. She came out of northern Missouri and I liked her a lot.

As Cayenne came to shore with the bumper in her mouth, she rushed by me and headed for Bev. Just before she got to Bev she dropped the bumper and sneezed. Then she sneezed again and again and again. My God, she didn't stop sneezing, even when we literally ran to the truck, loaded everyone in and took off for the vet's office. Thank goodness it was only 4 miles away. If I had to guess I would say that Cayenne sneezed a 100 times and that would not have been an exaggeration.

I brought Cayenne in and Dean looked at her and said, "I am betting that she inhaled a Foxtail seed. We will have to sedate her and when we are done I'll give you a call so you can come pick her up." Bev and I drove home and I put Chili in her kennel. When I got into the house I decided to look up Foxtail just to see what Dean might be saying to me. Here is a recent Google of what I found. Not much has changed but I am fully aware of my environment now.

Google: "Foxtail plants can be risky for your dog. The barbed seed heads of the foxtail plant can work their way into any part of your dog or cat, from the nose to between the toes and inside the ears, eyes, and mouth. They can even simply dig themselves directly into a patch of skin." This was just the beginning of that particular Google that I checked out.

We were finally notified that our dog was ready to go home, Dean took the time to tell me how they had to sedate her so that they could check her nostrils first. That is where they found the barbed seed that was doing all the damage. It made me think of how lucky we were that this was a work day of a normal week. What if it had been on a 3 day holiday, say perhaps, Memorial Day weekend? I do know that we would have had to drive about 70 miles to get to the nearest vet that stays open after hours.

Well, last week, it happened to be Chip and Belize that were with me. Since our run off has pushed the Rio Grande to run at a steady 4,000cfs for almost 3 weeks, I know of a couple of spots where some dandy ponds are created. We arrived at one of them and I stopped the Mule, told the two excited dogs next to me to "stay" because I saw a couple of Mexican ducks. I wanted a picture first and then I would let them out to mess around a little before I began the retriever practice.

I grabbed the bumpers and had my camera hanging around my neck as I walked over to the edge of the pond. Both dogs were at heel and ready to go. It was like a bolt of lightning striking way too close when I saw what looked like a planted field of foxtail on the far side of the pond. I continued my scan and saw that it was surrounding the pond. I turned around and we headed for the Mule to go home. Yes, I got that look from my dogs!

I care not to ever have another dog of ours to be affected like Cayenne was so many years ago. That was frightening for what she went through.

If you have never experienced anything like what I have been talking about, please take the time to check it out if you are a hunter and love your four legged critter that runs through nasty stuff to bring you birds. No bird in the world is worth it if your dog inhales or accidentally swallows some of these Foxtail seeds.
Al

A couple of pictures of what I have been talking about. Now envision pulling on the birds and watching them fall into that huge patch of foxtail and lets say that one of them is a cripple. Hopefully common sense will take over!


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These two pictures below, I took 10 days earlier and there were no seed heads showing at that time. Belize was just having fun and I had no idea what was beginning to grow in this area. Is there anyone else that has had a run in with this plant?



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Hello Al, hope things are going well for you.

I deal with mean seeds on almost every hunt here. Not so much foxtails but we have several others, especially Canada Wild Rye. It is in a lot of CRP seed mixes.

It is a rare outing when I don't see some. I have about started to ignore it and just make sure I check Deuce over well after every field. Places like under his collars, eyes, ears and nose get extra attention.

A couple years ago Deuce pointed a hen in some nice cover. After the flush he ran back by me shaking his head. Time after time he shook his head. After a few minutes he stopped but off and on the rest of the day he would have have shaking fits.

After a couple vet visits and even being sedated they could never find anything. I'm fairly certain with the amount of Wild Rye in that field that he had a seed in there for a while. Luckily he must have been able to shake it out before it got too well lodged in there.

My nephew has a Brittany who has gone under the knife a couple times to deal with what was likely a mean seed in her side. Last time they seem to have gotten it by taking a big chunk of flesh off of her rib cage.

Nasty stuff but it would be almost impossible to hunt here if you completely avoided areas with them.
Then with all the old barb wire fences in disrepair it's amazing the dogs aren't always at the vets.

Tim
 
Thanks Al and Tim for the reminder. I have pollinator/quail plots on my place and yes canada wild rye is in the mix.
I will have to keep Rufus from it.
 
Tim, it is good to hear from you. Thanks for telling me about the wild Rye. It sounds just as bad as fox tail. With all the snow you had I sure hope that your pheasant population was able to survive it, especially that last snow that you got. How are your pigeons doing?

Had to let you know my birds are doing well. I now have a total of 13 pigeons with two squabs in the nest. Things are looking good now. This all came from the 3 birds that I had left. I had one male and two females. The pair produced one youngster in their first round last year and it was a male, so that gave me two pair. All is well. Soon I will let them out to fly and scratch around.
Al
 
Al,
I'm not sure how the pheasants are doing right now. Locally the winter wasn't too bad but to the north and west it was tough. Now we are dealing with almost constant rain. It reminds me of the mid/late 90s when the ponds came back to the prairie. I would expect very good pond counts this year. In the long run should be good for waterfowl and upland.

I'm glad to here that you are getting your pigeon flock built back up. Now that you are up to 13 the next 50 will come fast. Hahaha

My pigeons are doing well. Maybe too well. I had a few hawk kills this winter and resupplied a young lady dog trainer with homer breeding stock after a hawk got into her loft. I still seem to have too many.

I'm mostly trying to breed for spread youngsters this year. I like those black and white birds. I just had one egg hatch this morning to a black male and a black pied hen. Hopefully the other will be hatched tomorrow morning.

I might put a white pair together also but then I better find a new home for a bunch of my older birds. Lots of eggs being tossed right now.

A little visitor we had this winter when I forgot to shut the trap. Fortunately no birds were harmed.


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Hi Al,
I know someone who train his dogs on the western plains; he starts in Canada and works south . He had a young pointer bitch that wasn't doing well and had a persistent fever. An ultrasound exam showed an abscess in the dog's abdomen, just under her aorta. With magnification they could see a foxtail foreign body in the abscess. A surgeon was able to drain the abscess and get the foxtail out. He cultured the bacteria in the abscess and the dog was on antibiotics for about 6 weeks but recovered well. They think she inhaled the foxtail and it traveled through the lungs, thru the diaphragm, and ended up in her abdomen!
 
Thanks so much for that story. To think what that pointer went through is almost unbelievable. It is good to know that she was taken care of properly and recovered. I appreciate you taking the time to write what you did, Sandy.

It seems that some of the places I used to hunt are now growing bumper crops of foxtail. I will have to revise what I do when training my dogs.
Al
 
Good morning Al,

We haven't had issues with awns yet. I suppose it is likely inevitable when hunting out west. That's why after every hunt, the dogs get their spa treatment where we look over their feet, ears and mouth the best we can, pulling burrs and seeds from their coats. It can be quite time consuming but in the end it is worth it and at least Drake and B love their after working loving. To be fair though, by the time we get out west the majority of the awns are gone and we just deal with cactus and sandspurs. The oddest place that we ever found a cactus thorn (thankfully a long one so it was noticeable) was in the middle of the back of B's tongue. Because of that, I am spending time with Belle getting her used to me checking her mouth over as well as her ears and feet when we go out for our walks because B may only be 40lbs but that's 40lbs of pure NO FREAKING WAY when it came to me trying to get that thorn out.

Dani
 
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