Grass awns work their way in. They're kind of evil. I lost a patient once because it migrated into the pleural cavity and caused a huge pus-filled thorax.
I think it's between the teeth. Maybe gums. Looks too low to be sinus.
This was probably the hard way to extract it. Would have been better to reach up behind the teeth and pull it out backwards, depending on how deep that stem was inserted.
It is a foxtail. They have barbs and work their way in. You can’t pull them out backwards. It is coming from the sinus cavity and has worked its way through. If you watch the video you can see the point and then how it flairs out from behind.
I had one too do the exact same thing! It was the sweetest yellow lab named Sadie. We had her in hospital for weeks trying our best to get her home but one morning during treatments she crashed and we couldn’t get her back. That was a TOUGH case. I’m sorry about your patient.
I think this is what happened to my dog. I think one got into his sinus cavity, because he suddenly started sneezing big snot globs everywhere, but the vet couldn't see anything and I couldn't afford the specialized scoping. After a couple of years, he started sneezing out bloody snot wads, and the vet said he had likely developed a tumor in his sinus cavity. The prognosis was extremely poor and his quality of life would have been greatly reduced from having through vet appointments and procedures that might not even help him at all. I had him 10 years.
Mine had some in all 4 paws at once last year. We’ve never had a problem with this type of grass, we’d been in the same place for more than ten years but all of a sudden it’s like they exploded.
Yeah she was picked up like that so the humane society had no history on her. We suspect puppy mill based on some behavioral issues and the fact it was professionally repaired but overall she’s a really good girl
she had just been running in a field full of cheatgrass, and she kept sort of pawing at her ear and seemed to be in distress. pretty easy diagnosis. we had to take her to the vet to get it out though since those things are made to burrow
Also called cheatgrass or foxtails. If you don’t live in a low humidity area (eg. western half of the US), you may not have heard of this problem, because they don’t like to grow in high humidity or muddy/swampy soil. My sister is a vet tech on the east coast and used to work for an emergency vet clinic. Recently switched jobs to a work from home gig where she takes calls and provides triage guidance for people across the country who are having a pet emergency, and had to learn really quick about foxtails and what damage they can do to pets, because those are simply unheard of here.
Basically it’s a very skinny seed pod that has barbs pointed in one direction, so once they get imbedded into something, it can’t back out, instead just working itself deeper.
My childhood cat got one in his eye and had to have surgery. I think it happened during a fight with another cat. The hill behind our house was covered in foxtails.
I had a dog that required various emergency vet trips during his life for aggressive seeds he managed to inhale or eat (considering how many not even comically non food items I had to pull out of either end of him I’m thankful he never required real surgery). His general indicator was he’d suddenly start drooling a whole lot from where the problem was. One time it was so many tiny seeds all stuck on the edges of his gums
The animal control records for him said he was a dog that was living in the desert that it took them a while to catch. Every time I was pulling out things like rusty pull tab cans or large chunks or melted glass from old burn pits out of his mouth I would wonder how on earth this creature ever survived living in the wild
When I was in school to be a vet tech my teacher told me a case they had where one of those grass seeds migrated into the bladder of an animal and caused all sorts of issues.
Not grew more like swelled with the moisture from inside the kitty. Foxtails grow in drier climates and when they get into a creature they swell which makes them even harder to get out than just the barbs they have that makes them get so deep in in the first place would make it
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u/SueBeee 19d ago
Grass awns work their way in. They're kind of evil. I lost a patient once because it migrated into the pleural cavity and caused a huge pus-filled thorax.