If you live in any state west of the Mississippi, you are probably pretty familiar with “foxtails.” In this case, foxtails do not refer to the attractive, bushy tails found at the end of foxes; instead foxtails refers to a weed that poses a particularly nasty threat to dogs.
In the article Foxtails Can Be Hazardous To Your Dog’s Health the author Dr. Don Beebe 
explains why foxtails are so easily picked up by dogs and hikers alike. The seeds, he writes, have microscopic barbules along their surface. They snag onto clothing and fur and, once caught in an animal’s coat (or a hiker’s sock), they are passively propelled forward — usually because of the movement of the victim — and prevented from exiting. If not noticed and removed, foxtails can work their way into a pet’s skin and enter it.
The article, Foxtails – A Deadly Summertime Danger, provides the following excellent information about foxtails.
Indicators That Your Pet Has a Foxtail
A foxtail seed can cause an inflamed, painful, infected lump anywhere on an animal’s body. A dog with a foxtail seed in its ear might rub its head on the ground or shake its head violently from side to side. If a dog gets a foxtail seed in its eye, it might squint. The eye will water and the dog will paw at it. Even if you can clearly see the seed beneath the eyelid, do not attempt to remove it. Get the dog to a veterinarian immediately.
An inhaled foxtail seed which has lodged in the nasal cavity may cause violent sneezing, sometimes with a bloody discharge from the nostrils. To remove it, a veterinarian may need to sedate the animal, locate the seed with a scope, and remove it with a forceps.
Swallowed foxtail seeds lodged in the throat will cause symptoms of an inflamed sore throat. A dog will swallow repeatedly, gulp, cough and gag. Even if the barbed seeds can be detected on examination, the dog will need to be sedated to relax the throat muscles so a veterinarian can grasp the seeds and remove them.
Depending on the location of the seed or seeds, other symptoms are compulsive licking and biting at a paw or around the groin or rectal area or whining and crying with no obvious or acute injury.
What M
akes Foxtails Dangerous
In addition to causing pain and localized infections, foxtail seeds can migrate and lodge in the spine, in the lungs and in other internal organs. They enter through the nose, ears, paws, eyes, urethra or just through the skin and travel through the body The seeds are very small, making locating them a painful, difficult and expensive procedure. Depending on where a foxtail seed has traveled to inside a dog, it can even be life threatening and will require prompt surgical removal.
What You Can Do To Keep Your Pet Safe
- Examine your pet daily. Carefully brush its hair, while feeling for any raised areas on its skin. Check inside and under its ears; check between the toes, under the armpits and in the groin area. Keep long haired and thick coated breeds especially well-groomed.
- If you see a foxtail seed sticking in the dog’s skin, carefully pull it straight out, making sure not to break it off in the process.
- If you think a seed might already embedded in the skin, in a paw, in an eye or an ear, or if a dog who has been eating grass seems to have a throat problem, get the dog to a veterinarian as soon as possible! Waiting can only make it harder to find, allow it to migrate and become more dangerous, and make treatment more difficult.
