Spear grass awns have sharp points with fine, hair-like stems that spread back from the point. The awns can burrow between the toes of dogs and can migrate through the tissues of the leg. They are also often found in pet’s ears, moving down the ear canal against the eardrum, causing severe irritation. Often sedation is required to remove these annoying grass awns.

Anytime your dog or cat has been in long, dry grassy areas, please check between their toes and around their ears and eyes for any plant material and remove it before it can become a major problem. Prevention is easy and will keep your furry family member more comfortable during the summer months!

Main symptoms:

Restlessness, discomfort

Circling to bite at tail

Unable to sit

It can be a prickly situation, but you might find yourself dealing with the sharp realities of a porcupine incident.

Do not cut off the quills! This makes removal much more difficult and can often lead to the quill burrowing under the surface of the skin.

If you have a very cooperative dog and very few quills, you can try removing the quills by grasping close to where they enter the skin and pulling straight out.

If there are more than a few don’t even attempt removal. Bring the dog to the clinic and we can remove the quills under anesthesia. It is easier and much less stress and discomfort for your poor dog.

The Okanagan area is a virtual convention centre for ticks. Learn how to prevent ticks from getting as attached to your pet as you are.

A common parasite that we start to see each spring in the Okanagan is the tick. Ticks are present in woody and grassy areas and are indiscriminate parasites. In other words, they don’t care if their blood meal comes from a dog, person, bear, coyote or all of the above. They are small, slow moving crawlers about the size of the end of a pencil eraser before they attach. Once on board a host, they migrate to a nice warm area and attach themselves to the skin with their mouth parts.

On people they favour armpits, groin and the scalp under the hairline. I still recall my surprise as a young lad when I discovered a tick attached to me during my evening bath time. Once a tick attaches to the skin it becomes engorged with blood and feeds for several days. At this stage it looks like a little grey blimp about the size of a raisin. If you flip it up you can see eight tiny legs waving around. To remove a tick you grasp it close to the mouth parts and pull it off with steady traction. Soaking the tick first in an insecticide or rubbing alcohol helps loosen the grip.

Now, you may be asking yourself, “what problems can ticks cause? The answer is a whole bunch! Because they feed on numerous different species and hosts during their life cycle they are ideal vectors or transmitters of different diseases. Viral, bacterial and protozoal diseases have all been documented to have spread by ticks. One of the most dramatic diseases I have seen caused by ticks is tick paralysis. It can affect any species, including humans. The symptoms start with a wobbly gait and progress to a full paralysis in less than 24 hours. This frightening condition can be completely reversed in several hours by removal of the tick. We see several cases of tick paralysis each year here in the Okanagan.

How do you prevent ticks?  There are a few great products on the market today to help kill off any ticks that manage to find their way onto your pet.  Our staff will be happy to help you find the product which will be best for you and your pets. Regardless of using a tick prevention product, people should still check themselves and their pets carefully after hiking, golfing (especially if you stray from the fairway a bit like yours truly), camping or any other outdoor activity.

With proper vigilance and preventive measures you and your pet can safely enjoy all kinds of outdoor recreation.

There is no other area of veterinary medicine where more progress has been made in the last ten years than flea control. The products available now are light years ahead of where they were in terms of safety and efficacy.

In the Okanagan we have pockets of flea infestation. There is often a burst of flea activity in the spring, a bit of a lull during the dry heat of summer, and another peak in the late summer extending into the fall. Animals differ tremendously in their sensitivity to flea bites. Some will be in a scratching frenzy with just a few bites, whereas others can support a thriving population of fleas with relatively little irritation.

In comparison to the slow moving tick, fleas are lightning fast. You have to be quick to see them on your pet and they are also able to jump several feet in a single bound. Sometimes the only visible evidence of an infestation is flea dirt – the dried up digested blood that the flea passes during feeding.

There are excellent products on the market for use in flea control, which can be used for both dogs and cats.  Our well trained staff can answer any questions you may have about flea control products.

This recipe for getting skunk odour out is supposed to work like a charm. If you are lucky you will never have need for it!

1. One quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide
2. 1/4 cup baking soda
3. 1 teaspoon liquid soap such as Ivory

Mix the ingredients together and apply to the smelly victim. Rinse thoroughly with tap water.

The results are touted to be nothing short of miraculous. Please let me know if any of you have occasion to use it.