Editor:
On a recent afternoon walk with our chocolate lab, we noticed he had sniffed a foxtail (the tip of a blade of spear grass) up one of his nostrils. Within seconds it was no longer visible, and he was sneezing uncontrollably and unwilling to open his mouth for water.
Foxtails have become much more visible around Ladner this summer, with a particularly high cluster around the public parking lot at Chisholm and Elliott streets. The leaves are sharp and commonly get stuck in fur, and if the grass has been cut and the trimmings left, the spears can easily be snorted up by our unsuspecting pets. Once inside, they can cause harmful infections, or worse.
Despite catching it as it happened, the foxtail was still too far up our dog’s nose to extract it easily. A trip to the vet, a rhinoscopy, and nearly $2K later, we had our weary boy back along with a container holding the offending spear.
I know we’ll be avoiding walks along Chisholm Street until the cold weather returns and the foxtails disappear.
Jordon Miller
