Porcupines

[check]

Our previous Airedale got porked. Had to take him to the animal hospital, where they put them under while removing the quils. Cost us several hundred dollars!

 

[ArlyA]

Our previous Airedale got porked. Had to take him to the animal hospital, where they put them under while removing the quills. Cost us several hundred dollars!

We had one dog that got quilled. She avoided them for the next 12 years!

 

[Oaktree]

I use to see them quite often. I've not had one in my yard in over twelve years. That was the last one I dispatched. I have no answer as to where they all went or why. I still train my dogs with old quills.

Years ago I had to put one of my dogs down. He just could not learn to leave them alone.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen one in quite a long time either.
When I was a kid my parents had a collie that just would not learn to leave them alone. Multiple times every summer it would get into it with one. You'd think it would figure it out after a while that these animals were bad news but it never did.

 

[oosik]

We might have a GREAT situation if we could just mix the porcupines here with the trespassers from m1garand762's post. What a great solution.

 

[sea2summit]

Doesn't a dog usually learn to leave them alone after their first encounter?

I think mine after the first encounter think it's a challenge to find the correct attack vector

Best method seems to be put their head in a car door and lean on it to hold them still then pliers and iodine.

 

[WinterDeere]

Best method seems to be put their head in a car door...

Before getting to the pliers and iodine, my mind thought you were heading toward Pesci, a'la Raging Bull.

 

[masscity]

I'm 76 now and moved back to the UP when I was 60. Hardly any Porkies anywhere at that time. Then they started rebounding. They had put Fishers up here to lower the Porkie numbers, but then hunters started shooting and trapping Fishers thinking they were killing Partridge eggs/chicks.

I shot a couple of dozen since I came back, but hadn't seen any for a few years until this past May and shot it. I only shoot them in the yard. They chew on everything, including the house shed.

Back when I was young we were logging we would leave the tractor out in the woods. They would chew on the steering wheel, gear shift knob and tires.

 

[5030]

They chew on everything, including the house shed.

After the salt in the wood. Had that issue up north (northwest central Michigan) with my deer blinds and had to shoot a couple. much as I didn't want to. Basically harmless but destructive.

 

[oosik]

Salt - that's why they chewed the wooden handles on my wheelbarrow.