by John Stewart Wright w/ image
Cheatgrass kills bird dogs.
Not often, but too often, for any bird hunter who loves his or her canine companions.
And sub-mortal cases are common and expensive. Cheatgrass seeds pierce dogs, introduce bacteria and cause abscesses that often require trips to the vet and weeks of down time. Popular areas for cheatgrass abscesses are between toes and behind the angle of the jaw. As a kid, I had a Lab mix that got a related foxtail in her hamstring area. The seed migrated up and down her upper leg, causing a long series of large abscesses. Muscle tissue necrosed and sloughed off, her affected leg shrank to less than half the size of the other hind leg. A half-dozen trips to the vet were required before the seed was located – largely through sheer luck – and extracted.
So, I’ve been assiduously mowing cheatgrass on the home place, a bit of a northern Montana farmstead. It’s a snotty, dusty job that I do repetitively throughout the early growing season. We don’t have a lot of the nasty grass on the place; however, for me and for my dogs, there’s too much. In one area that the dogs are never allowed to visit without a heavy snow layer, it’s profuse. On surrounding properties, on road margins, clumps of cheatgrass are moving from green to purple as spring proceeds and the grass matures. Soon it will be desiccated brown, hardened off, sharp – and dangerous to bird dogs. It will remain dangerous through the dry summer season and early days of the upcoming hunting season until fall rains knock residual seed and stalks to the ground and snow buries them. There’s ample incentive for everyone who hunts with a bird dog to glean a bit of botanical knowledge, gain facility in recognizing cheatgrass and, perhaps, avoiding the worst areas and, in doing so, enhance dog safety and keep veterinary costs down.
Bromus tectorum, aka “cheatgrass,” is an unavoidable, teeth-gritting fact of bird dog life in this strip of northern Montana and throughout vast swaths of the U.S. – especially in the arid West. It’s non-native, a Eurasian import, an invasive annual species that loves dry and disturbed sites. A single plant seems wispy and innocuous, but collectively the plants form monocultures that can become extensive with dense, shallow root mats that exclude other vegetation. Cheatgrass germinates in the fall, lies dormant all winter and grows quickly to maturity in the spring. In warm, southern portions of the Intermountain West, it can harden off by early May; it may require another month in cooler, more northerly regions. Across the West and in other parts of the country, there are additional grass species that carry similar risks to canines. Examples include speargrass – aka needle-and-thread – in the West, foxtail along the West Coast, threeawn in Mearn’s country, Canadian rye in the upper Midwest (Note: Canadian rye is often added to seed mixes advertised for “wildlife plots” and often planted on private game preserves or public wildlife management areas. As a result, I occasionally see it in the West). Notably, the English springer field trial circuit suffered an outbreak of mortality due to Canadian rye in the Midwest in the early 2000s. A double handful of dogs died – some were highly competitive dogs. All were loved by their owners. The cause of that mortality blip is uncertain. Maybe some new grounds used for events exposed dogs to Canadian rye or, perhaps, the addition of that grass species to seed mixes became more common at that time.
A word on nomenclature. You may see the terms seeds and awns used interchangeably. Add veterinarian lingo to the mix and “migrating foreign body” can be substituted, as well. We all know what a seed is — it’s the propagative part of a plant. For the grass species of concern, an awn is a bristle-like structure that encases the seed. This adaptation helps seeds to snag rides in the fur of passing creatures or to catch wind to disperse. The awn also helps the seed to drill into soil. Because the awn tip is sharp, its margins are serrated and the tails contract and flex with changes in temperature and humidity, driving the seed into dirt … or through the flesh of an unlucky dog.
In the case of my Lab, the awn likely snagged the furry feathers on the back of her upper leg. Undetected, the sharp tip quickly worked its way through the skin and into the underlying muscle tissue. In that instance, there were few anatomical boundaries on the movement of the awn and muscle contractions helped to drive the awn on its travels. In the case of an awn that drills between toes, odds are that awn won’t go far. But it will cause an abscess that might need to be surgically opened up and drained, anesthesia and antibiotics augmenting the bill, and a lame dog for a few weeks to follow.
Yet, when it comes to weed seed infections, those are the best-case scenarios. The worst-case scenario is an awn that’s inhaled. That’s why cheatgrass is especially dangerous—the seeds are small and easily inhaled by a hardworking, panting dog. An inhaled seed passes down the windpipe and bronchial tubes into the lung. Over time, it bores through tissue and out of the lung and enters the chest cavity. An infection in the chest cavity, known as pyothorax, is the result. It’s a dire circumstance and I’ve known far too many dogs that have died of pyothorax. In a recent discussion on the subject with Joe Spoo, DVM, aka Gun Dog Doc, Joe said, “Fear of migrating foreign bodies is what keeps me awake at night with my own dogs.”
Among bird dog breeds, the flushing dogs seem especially predisposed to weed seed problems. They have longer fur to snag seeds, they typically have shorter legs than pointing breeds and they tend to work with head down or at half-height – both of which put the ports of entry (aka the nose and mouth) close to seed height. And I’ve seen every major breed affected, shorthaired as well as longhaired, pointing as well as flushing – pointers, GSPs, setters, Labradors. A buddy’s pointer died despite the best experts and half a new pickup truck’s worth of expense.
Some decades ago, I had a promising young English springer survive a case of pyothorax. One morning the normally high-energy dog was lagging on the morning run, not overtly, but just a titch. That was odd and caught my attention. Back at the house, I heard him cough. That was enough to immediately send me off to the local vet for a chest X-ray, which confirmed my suspicion. The Montana vet referred him to a specialist in Ft. Collins, Colorado, and I had him there – a 10-hour drive – by that evening. The dog lived because the problem was recognized early, my vet passed the case to another vet with appropriate expertise and action was prompt. The take-home message to other bird dog owners who suspect pyothorax in a dog: with this condition, minutes are hours and hours are days. Dogs who seem largely healthy and stable, but are suddenly a bit off their game and have a dry cough can very rapidly become dead. It’s not a veterinary issue where a wait-and-see approach yields good results.
And the expense of a cure in an affected dog is daunting. A few years ago, I discussed the subject with a veterinary specialist in Utah. Cheatgrass is the de facto state plant, as it is for several states in the Intermountain West, so the specialist sees many cases each year, especially in late spring and early summer when the new seed crop is abundant. He presented a thumbnail description of his experience with pyothorax cases: a typical case arrived on his doorstep late when the infection was highly progressed. The owner noticed a problem, but waited a few days before taking the pup to the general practice vet; the vet treated conservatively with oral antibiotics and a few days later the dog was in crisis and was referred to the specialist. At that stage, surgical treatment provided the greatest likelihood of a good outcome, but the survival rate was only 50%. A ballpark price tag in his practice for surgical treatment and hospitalization with all the trimmings was $18,000. As an alternative to surgery, medical treatment provided some savings, but was still pricey – and resulted in a survival rate that was even lower.
What’s a responsible bird dog owner to do? It’s virtually impossible to train upland dogs, hunt birds or compete in field events in the western U.S. and entirely avoid cheatgrass. Here are measures I take to reduce risks to my dogs:
You can’t fight what you can’t see. Learn to recognize plants with nasty awns on your home turf and any other part of the country where you plan to hunt or compete.
Control what you can control. Reduce risks at home through mowing, herbicide and irrigation. The very best way to get rid of cheatgrass, for example, is to irrigate. The plant is susceptible to root rot and doesn’t do well in moist sites. Burning is the worst choice – the species is highly adapted to fire and will propagate. Choose areas to exercise or train dogs with nasty grass species in mind.
Avoid hunting or competing in areas with a high density of nasty seeds. Everyone has their own tolerance limits – establish yours. For some folks, anything goes. I probably err on the side of caution and I know others who are more cautious than me. When hunting, I’ve called a dog in, heeled out of the seedy field and moved to a safer spot. I’ve arrived on field trial grounds to find them overrun and unsafe. I’ve scratched dogs from running in those instances – a small bit of silk (a field trial ribbon) and an entry fee isn’t worth the risk of big vet bills or losing a dog.
Check dogs over after a hunt. For short-haired breeds, check between toes and in ears. For long-haired breeds, consider clipping the dog’s hair short during the worst of the seed season. I clip my springers short at the start of warm summer weather, which is when seeds are newly hardened, and again in mid-to-late August, right before hunting season begins. I trim my setter’s fur, especially between toes and pads, on her chest and leg feathers. Post-hunt, check all the usual locations and, especially if the long hair hasn’t been trimmed, comb out the dog using a fine-toothed comb. Realize that these measures can reduce the incidence of abscesses, but don’t address the risk of inhalation. Only avoidance and/or luck can achieve that.
Finally, if you notice symptoms and suspect pyothorax, don’t delay. Pursue diagnosis and treatment ASAP. Realize that your trusted general practice vet may not be the best choice to manage pyothorax. As my vet said a few decades ago, “No one in Montana is set up to handle a case like this.” A specialist who has treated lots of cases is desirable.
The cheatgrass invasion has altered western landscapes. As a species that loves dry sites, cheatgrass has benefitted from a changing climate that’s more prone to drought. As a fine-fuel species that carries fire and both amplifies fire behavior and frequency across the landscape, it exacerbates effects of changing climate. Bird hunters know that non-native, Old World partridge species like chukar or Huns eat cheatgrass. For other New World gamebird species, notably sage grouse, cheatgrass is an important factor in long-term, ongoing habitat degradation and population decline. It contributes to more frequent, more extensive and more intense wildfires in the sagebrush-steppe habitat type, and these fires eliminate mature sagebrush communities upon which the grouse depend. Hunting at elevation for ruffed grouse or blue or spruce grouse isn’t a foolproof avoidance strategy; domestic cows carry seeds that populate national forest grazing allotments. Cheatgrass is a ubiquitous fact of western bird dog life – something that I’m alert for whenever I’m afield. I mentioned to a friend, a fellow western bird dogger, that I was just finishing up an article on cheatgrass. “The devil in plant form,” she summarized. And I’ll be exorcising that devil on the farmstead for a few more weeks before the annual chore is done.
