Grass Seeds

Grass seeds can be a big problem in the summer months, these are the short seeds with the spiky ends and very, very sharp. And we do find that they can affect different parts of the body, but most commonly, they tend to get in between the toes and in the skin in between the toes there, or in the eye, or in the ear. And once they are in, they are really painful, so you will often find, if you have a grass seed in the foot, your dog might hold the foot up or they will certainly try and lick at it quite a lot.

With ear grass seeds, they may shake their heads or scratch at the ear to indicate that there is a problem. And the same with the eye, they may be squinting the eye or rubbing at the eye to show you that there is something going on there. They can cause a lot of damage that the ends of them are incredibly pointy and this means that they will only normally travel in one direction. So if a grass seed goes in the skin in between the toes, it can track up and cause problems as far as it may travel. We have seen them before where they have gone in the foot here and come up out of a shoulder or in the back foot up out of the hip. So they can travel quite far and cause a lot of tissue damage as they do so.

If you have been walking your dog in the long grass and you suspect that they may have the grass seed in their foot or ear, or eye, it is always worth getting to the vet as soon as you can. If you actually see the tip of the grass seed in the eye or in the foot, in the ear, it is a little bit more difficult to access it because they normally travel right to the base of the ear canal. But if you can actually see the grass seed, you can try and safely remove it. They do snap quite easily, so it is really important to get a good grip on it and not to use anything sharp where the tip of it could snap off. And if you can gently apply pressure, just to pull that grass seed out of the wound, then it is always best to do so before it then penetrates further into the body.

They can cause a lot of damage, they often do cause infection, so if you are not able to get the grass seed out yourself, please do contact your vet as soon as you can and they will be able to remove it. Sometimes the animal needs to be sedated to find that grass seed but it is important that we get it out as soon as we possibly can.