I have recently seen a dog that got porcupined, meaning he went to investigate a porcupine and as dogs typically do, try to taste bite it. As you can guess that dog was enroute to the local animal ER for quill removal shortly. Recently on Animal Planet (TV), I saw that a horse was getting ‘dequilled’ from such a encounter.
Now I don’t blame the porcupine, and in many way feel the porcupine should send a bill to the offending animal for loss of quills, but I am wondering about the fate of animals that are porcupined ‘in the wild’ what is their fate?
Far better to remove the quills ASAP as the quill that remains inside often causes infection and abscesses - its left unstated that this also causes disfigurement and disability and even death.
2.
Untreated or incompletely removed quills may migrate. Migration of quills, similar to migration of other organic foreign bodies (grass awns, thorns etc.), can lead to significant complications (10–12). Grahn et al (5) described 5 cases of ocular complications due to porcupine quill migration; these cases included intraocular and periorbital migration. Additionally, 3 case reports described discoveries in dogs of migrating quills in the humeroradial joint (6), temporal fossa (7), and brain (8).
After a while the quill may be coated in calcium and tolerated…