It is not necessary to live in rural areas where cereal is traditionally grown in the fields, nor is it necessary to walk through forests or areas surrounded by nature. The ears are part of plants that grow anywhere, fields, towns, cities, parks, roads … And the truth is that they represent a danger to our dogs.
There are many grass plants that form sharp spikes and full of small “hooks”, which we can see under a microscope. These spikes can stick anywhere and cause discomfort, pain, infection and even different diseases.
It is enough to play near these plants, jump on top of them or simply be unlucky that the wind brings us one … to be in danger. It is something that mainly affects dogs given their fur, but it can also affect us.
Wheat ears on a dog’s nose
It will be very easy to know if our dog has had the bad luck of sticking a dowel in his nose, or what is worse … in the respiratory tract. If we appreciate any of these symptoms, we should urgently go to a vet to put him to sleep and extract the entire ear.
Main symptoms that our dog has a spike in his nose:
- Itching, will try to scratch.
- Cough or sneezing, you will constantly sneeze.
- Runny nose, it’s normal for you to start runny nose and even expel bloody mucus.
- Nervousness, will be restless to see that it does not pass.
We should never try to remove the spike by ourselves, because his nose is extremely delicate and we can do him a lot of damage. In addition, we can leave a piece stuck and cause an infection.
Wheat ears in a dog’s ear
In the same way that a spike can get into your nose or hair, it can also access your ear and cause serious discomfort and great pain. We insist that we should never try to search for or extract it ourselves, because we could cause irreparable damage to your ears.
The symptoms that a dog presents when it has a spike in its ear are:
- Shaking of the head, how when they have it wet and shake the water.
- Scratching the ear, an obsessive scratching that can seriously harm you.
- Pain, moans, nervousness … signs that the problem is there.
Excessive scratching by the dog can cause a otohematoma it seriously damages your ear. Most of them need surgical intervention and recovery is slow and unpleasant. We should immediately go to the vet if we suspect that our dog may have a spike in his ear.
Wheat ears in a dog’s eye
In addition to being dangerous, they are very painful, so the dog will try to remove them at all costs and possibly damage the eye in the attempt. It goes without saying that only a veterinaryn can treat a dog’s eyes, so under no circumstances should we try to do it ourselves.
Symptoms of a dog when a spike is stuck in the eye:
- Excessive scratching on the face, trying to scratch the eye.
- General clumsiness due to pain and lack of vision.
- Acute pain, so we must calm him down while we go to the vet.
Wheat ears on a dog’s fur
These are the most complicated of all, because we may not detect them and cause an infection in our dog. The spikes due to their morphological characteristics, once they are nailed, do not come out easily, so at general levels, what they do is to go nailing more slowly.
The normal thing is to find a lump on your skin, sometimes infected. If we look at the package, we may see the spike half nailed or we may simply see it already nailed, if our dog’s hair allows us to. Sometimes they get stuck in the pads of our dogs’ paws, which produces an even sharper pain.
To find them we must check our dog periodically and thoroughly, especially when we know that we have been walking or playing in areas where they abound. If we find any, we can try to remove it very carefully … although it is recommended that a veterinaryn do it, to avoid infections.
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