The Trouble With Grass Seeds

They look harmless. Their shape tells a different story.

Grass seeds are the sort of thing you might brush from your trousers without giving them another thought. They are small, dry and light enough to travel home unnoticed in a dog’s coat.

This helps the plant spread, but a dog’s coat gives the seed an unintended way to travel. Look closely at one and the problem becomes clearer. One end narrows to a point, while fine barbs along the outside help it cling to whatever brushes past.

Once caught in the fur, it can work its way towards the skin, pierce it and continue into the tissue beneath.

The seed does not soften or disappear once it is inside the body. The dog moves, the skin moves and the seed may keep travelling.

This is how something picked up during an ordinary walk can become a veterinary problem.

Summer is when most cases happen

Grass seeds can cause trouble at any time of year, but the risk rises sharply once grasses begin producing dry seed heads.

A UK study using veterinary records found that 90.6% of reported grass seed foreign bodies occurred between June and September. July was the busiest month.

The same research found a striking difference between types of dog. Spaniels were 7.7 times more likely to present with a grass seed than retrievers.

Anyone who has watched a spaniel disappear enthusiastically into long grass may not find this entirely surprising. Their long ears, feathered legs and often densely haired paws give seeds plenty of places to catch. The way many of them move through the landscape matters too: nose down, ears brushing the ground and very little interest in keeping to the path.

They are not the only dogs at risk. Any dog can collect a seed, particularly one with a thick or feathery coat, long ears or a love of charging through overgrown fields.

A limp may be the first clue

Checking the paws means doing more than glancing at the pads. Part the hair between each toe and look underneath as well. A seed can sit deep in the fur and be almost impossible to spot from above.

Sometimes the seed is still sitting loose in the coat and can be lifted away. At other times, the first sign is the dog repeatedly licking one paw. They may limp, hold the paw up or object when the area is touched. A small swelling can appear between the toes, sometimes with a tiny hole or discharge where the seed entered.

This can be easy to mistake for a minor cut, an insect bite or the beginning of an interdigital cyst. The original seed may no longer be visible.

Do not keep digging at a sore paw in the hope of finding it. If the skin is swollen, painful or broken, the vet needs to take over. Tweezers can snap a seed or push it farther in, leaving part of it behind.

Watch for sudden changes around the head

With ears, the change can be abrupt. A dog can appear perfectly comfortable during the walk, then begin shaking their head or scratching one side soon after coming home. Some hold the affected ear differently or develop a slight head tilt.

Shaking will not necessarily dislodge the seed. It may carry it farther along the ear canal, where it becomes more painful and more difficult to reach.

Trying to retrieve it at home risks pushing it deeper or damaging the ear. A vet may be able to remove it with an otoscope, although sedation is sometimes needed when the ear is painful or the seed has travelled a long way down.

Seeds can also lodge behind an eyelid. Redness, watering, squinting or pawing at the face should be treated as urgent. The eye can be scratched surprisingly quickly, and a seed hidden beneath the lid may not be visible from the outside.

Persistent, violent sneezing after a walk can mean that something has entered the nose. A small amount of nasal discharge or blood may follow. Again, this is not something to investigate with fingers or tweezers.

Seeds can also reach the mouth when a dog chews grass or spends the walk sniffing with their face close to the ground. They may become caught between the teeth, beneath the tongue or at the back of the throat. Gagging, unusual drooling, repeated attempts to swallow or pawing at the mouth are all reasons to speak to a vet.

The seed may be gone from sight

One of the difficulties with grass seeds is that the visible entry point does not always reveal where the seed has ended up.

Finding one is not always straightforward once it has disappeared beneath the skin. The seed itself is often difficult to distinguish on a standard X-ray, although the irritation or infection surrounding it may leave other clues.

The symptoms usually determine where the search begins. Ultrasound may help with a seed beneath the skin, while an otoscope allows the vet to look inside the ear. Seeds suspected in the nose or airways may require a camera, and CT can be useful when the route is less obvious.

Sometimes a seed is found and removed quickly. Sometimes the search is much more involved.

The concern is not that every grass seed will cause a serious complication. Most will not. But once one has passed beneath the skin, it can leave inflammation, infection or an abscess in its wake. In rare cases, seeds travel much farther and have been found inside the chest, abdomen and other parts of the body.

That is why the history of what happened matters. Telling the vet that the signs began shortly after a walk through long grass may help when there is nothing obvious to see.

The two-minute check

It is not realistic to remove every patch of long grass from a dog’s life. For plenty of them, crashing through it is one of the great pleasures of a walk.

The useful habit begins when they come home.

Start with the paws. Look between every toe and underneath, around the pads. Then check inside the ear flaps and around the entrance to each ear. Run your hands along the legs, under the armpits, across the belly and through any longer hair. Look around the eyes, nose and mouth too.

You are feeling for anything dry, sharp or newly caught in the coat. A comb can help with feathering and dense fur. Keeping the hair between the toes and around the ears neatly trimmed may also leave seeds with fewer places to hide.

If a seed is resting loosely on the surface, remove it carefully. If it appears embedded, has broken the skin or may have entered an ear, eye, nose or mouth, leave it alone and call your vet.

The same applies when the seed itself has vanished but the dog is suddenly limping, licking, sneezing or shaking their head. Waiting to see whether it settles gives a barbed seed more time to move.

A post-walk check is not foolproof. It will not catch every seed, and it cannot make long grass entirely safe.

But two quiet minutes at the door can find one before it stops being a seed in the coat and becomes something much harder to remove.