Last night at about 11 pm, Max, our 100-pound Mastiff/Boxer mix, tried to bite a porcupine. This is a very bad thing to do. But poor Max has never been around one before. He had quills in his mouth and gums and tongue. All around his muzzle. He was a hurting mess. We brought him in the house and made him lay on his side. Don lay on top of him to hold him down while I pulled out the quills using a pair of pliers. Max had no way of knowing that I was trying to help him - not hurt him.
I've had a quill in my leg one time - and they are very painful. And they really hurt when you pull them out.
He kept fighting us - and periodically I'd have to stop working on him and pull him onto my lap and calm him down so we could go back to work. He was panting from heat and pain and fear and eventually just collapsed from exhaustion at the end. Which made it easier for me to pull the hardest quills out of his mouth. He had no fight left in him.
I took him down to the creek and let him crawl in and cool off - then fed him some soft dog food. The livingroom floor was covered with blood and dog drool and so was I (since I'd been laying on the floor while working on him). We cleaned it up and then took showers. We were both covered in sweat and my clothes looked like I'd spent the day in a slaughter house.
We checked on him several times before finally going to bed at about 1 am – and he kept rubbing against both of us to let us know that there were no hard feelings.
Max is a rescue dog. He was badly abused and neglected and we rescued him from the dog pound. We’ve spent the last two years treating him gently and getting him to trust us. I really hated to have to hurt him last night. But, I hope he realizes that we were trying to help him.
Max is fine this morning. We expected him to be sore or nervous. But, he's his normal joyful self.
Note: Animal-rights wackos need not bother to write. I can't afford medical care for myself so a huge vet bill was not even an option. The only alternative to pulling the quills ourselves was a bullet to put him out of his misery. If asked, I'm quite sure Max would say that was not his preferred alternative.