Foxtails are annual grasses that are common in weedy areas around roads, paths, and fields. They are soft and green January thru March or early April. In late spring however,   the heads begin to dry and that’s when the danger begins, lasting throughout summer and fall.  There are more than 40 species of foxtails around North America.  Most species have dense, cylindrical, often brush-like flower clusters that resemble foxes tails. These structures have sharp points at one end and microscopic barbs, so that they easily move in the direction of the point, but not the other way. Foxtails slip easily into holes, but their tiny barbs make them difficult to pull out.

Foxtails cause problems for all breeds. If your dog has thick wooly hair, foxtails embedded in the coat will eventually burrow through the skin and into his body. For dogs with short hair, foxtails get started in between the toes and burrow into the feet. The following are common foxtail problems:

Nose foxtails: pawing at the nose, severe sneezing, and possible bleeding from the nose. Symptoms sometimes diminish after several hours, becoming intermittent.

Ear foxtails: tilting and shaking the head, pawing at the ear, crying and moving stiffly. 

Eye foxtails: squinting the eye, redness and swelling, and mucous discharge. 

Throat foxtails: swallowing repeatedly, stretching the neck, gagging and coughing.

Feet foxtails: licking excessively, redness of the toe web, possibly a bump or draining tract.

If your dog shows any of the above symptoms, schedule an appointment immediately. In addition to causing pain, localized abscesses, and infection, foxtails can migrate and lodge in the lungs and other internal organs making major surgery necessary. Even then, foxtails don’t show up on x-rays and are sometimes impossible to surgically locate and remove.

Prevention goes a long way

v     Keep your dog out of fields with long grass.

v     Keep your lawn trimmed, and free of weeds and brush.

v     Examine your dog daily.  Brush its hair, feeling for any raised areas out of the ordinary that may be harboring a foxtail.

v     Check the ears, armpits, and groin area daily.

v     Have long-haired dogs clipped short in the spring & summer and keep the hair between the toes clipped short, making it easier to locate foxtails.  

When treating medical conditions, the veterinarian will sometimes recommend a recheck exam to assess the outcome of the therapy. Recheck exams can be performed for a variety of conditions but they are almost always recommended for skin, ear and eye problems. Why?

The short answer is that these conditions can be difficult to treat. There is no “one size fits all” therapeutic approach. Recheck appointments for assessment of the response to therapy and then revision of the treatment based on how things are going is not only important but in many cases, absolutely critical to a successful outcome.

Let’s use an example to illustrate the point. Duke is a 3 year old chocolate lab that came in for shaking his head. During his physical exam, the doctor discovers that he has an ear infection. Checking a sample of the wax reveals abundant numbers of yeast. The doctor discusses potential causes of otitis and Duke is sent home with ear cleaner and a topical medication to reduce inflammation and to kill the yeast overgrowth. A recheck is recommended for 2 weeks to assess Dukes response to the recommended therapy. Duke and his owners return two weeks later reporting that he is much more comfortable and they are no longer seeing dark debris when cleaning. An otoscopic ear exam reveals 90% improvement. Excellent! An ear swab is taken and low and behold there are still large numbers of yeast organisms. At this point, if treatment were stopped it would just be a matter of time before the ears were uncomfortable again. The steroid in the ear medication helped the inflammation and so Dukes ear feels better. The medication has also been effective at partially clearing the infection; however, the ears are not “fixed”. At this point a decision needs to be made as to continuing therapy longer, changing therapy or looking for an underlying cause for the persistent infection.
Without recheck appointments, we basically are left with assumptions that the pets get better. This is a fine approach as long as they really do. Unfortunately, especially with chronic and frustrating conditions like skin and ear disease, there is just no way of knowing, and ultimately of helping, unless we look again.