Porcupine Quills: Do Not Pull Them Out

Cape porcupines are widespread across South Africa and active at night. Dogs investigate, get a face full of quills, and owners reach for pliers. This is one of the clearest cases where the obvious action is the wrong one.

Why not to pull

Quills have microscopic backward-facing barbs. Pulling causes the shaft to break, leaving the barbed section embedded and migrating deeper into tissue over the following days and weeks. Migrating quills reach joints, the chest cavity and occasionally the heart, and cause abscesses that surface weeks later far from the original site.

It is also excruciating. A dog with fifty quills in its muzzle needs sedation or general anaesthetic, not restraint by two people in a yard.

What to do

1. Phone the vet immediately and say it is porcupine quills. Many rural practices will open after hours for this.
2. Keep the dog calm and stop it pawing at its face, which drives quills deeper and injures the eyes. A cone, a towel, or holding the front legs gently.
3. Do not cut the quills. The old advice about cutting them to "release the pressure" is a myth and makes them harder to grip during removal.
4. Do not let the dog drink or eat if there are quills in or near the mouth, since it will need anaesthetic.
5. Take a photo before you go if you can, so there is a record of how many and where.

Afterwards

Expect antibiotics and pain relief, and expect to be told to watch for lumps and abscesses for weeks. Any new swelling, discharge, lameness or unexplained fever in the months after a quilling should be mentioned with reference to the incident, because a migrated quill is a real possibility.

Preventing it

Porcupines are nocturnal, so the highest-risk time is dusk to dawn. Bring dogs in at night on smallholdings and farms, or keep them in a secure run. Porcupines come for vegetable gardens, fallen fruit and pumpkins, so removing the food source moves them along. Do not harm them — they are indigenous, ecologically valuable and generally harmless if left alone.

Repeat offenders exist. Some dogs go back a second and third time, which is a strong argument for confinement rather than hoping they learned.