Part of the joys of living in the west is dealing with things like cactus needles. When I took the dogs for a run the other night Abby came back covered in cactus needles. It wouldn’t have happened if she would have just stayed on the dirt road with me. But, how to you tell a hunting dog not to hunt? I try to let them roam free on our runs in the hills, chasing jackrabbits and tweety birds. So I got to spend the next 15-20 minutes pulling cactus needles out of Jake and Abby’s legs. Abby had them far worse than Jake covering the front of each of her four legs. I pulled one very large needle from her front paw and immediately blood began to spurt in short rhythmic pulses. It was messy for a moment until Abby licked it and the bleeding stopped.

The funny thing was that neither of my dogs seemed to care that they were covered in cactus needles. They didn’t even seem to notice, no limping, licking or anything. I was pretty sure it was at least a little uncomfortable so I did my best to remove every last needle. The smaller ones were left because I found it impossible to remove the furry little clusters. When I checked both of the dogs the next morning, I couldn’t even find a single trace. In general, I think dogs are pretty good at taking care of things themsleves. After all, they aren’t really that far removed from the wild days of only the strong survive.