Health & Medical

My spaniel, Wren, came back from a riverside walk shaking her head so hard I heard it across the field. I checked her ear, saw nothing, and carried on. By Tuesday the head-shaking had a yelp in it, and when I looked again there was a thin, wicked little seed deep in the canal, the kind of grass awn that drifts off dry verges in late summer. That unremarkable speck almost cost her the hearing in one ear, and I've not ignored a head-shake since.

Grass awns — people call them foxtails or beard grass depending on where you live — are designed by nature to burrow. The barbs only go one way. Once one gets into an ear, a paw, or the corner of an eye, it works inward with every movement, and it doesn't stop on its own. Wren's was in the ear, the worst place short of the eye, because the canal is narrow and the drum is right there.

How it went wrong

The first sign was the shaking, which I'd dismissed as water from the river. The second was her pawing at the ear and a low whine when I touched the flap. By the time the vet saw her, the awn had migrated past where I could spot it, and she needed sedation to look properly down the canal. The vet fished it out with a hook under a scope, a small brown arrow of a seed that had travelled half an inch and was one bad day from the eardrum.

What I didn't know is how fast these things move. A dog shaking its head drives the awn deeper, not out, because the motion works the barbs the wrong way. Every head-shake I'd watched and ignored was helping it along. The vet said the classic trio is head-shaking, pawing, and a tilt to one side, and that any one of them after a walk in long grass deserves a look, not a wait.

Aftercare was simple but strict. Wren got ear drops for a few days to settle the inflammation, and I had to keep her out of tall grass until it healed, which in high summer meant short leads on mown paths for a week. The relief was immediate — the yelp stopped the evening the seed came out — but the canal was raw, and a half-healed ear is an invitation to infection if you let them straight back into the bracken.

Now I check her ears on the way home from every walk through rough land, fingers gentle, nose close. I part the fur and look, because the awns often lodge at the entrance first, where they're easy to pluck, before they sneak inside. A quick comb-through of the legs and between the toes catches the ones that ride in on the coat. Ten seconds that would have saved us a sedated Tuesday.

The awn that nearly won

The grass awn that crept into my spaniel's ear was tiny and nearly did real damage because I waited. If your dog shakes its head after a walk in dry, seeding grass, look now, not tomorrow, and if you can't see the bottom of the canal, let someone with a scope do it. These seeds don't retreat. They only go deeper, and the difference between a two-minute pluck and a sedation and a hearing risk is usually just how fast you looked. Wren's fine now, ear intact, and she still hates the river grass, which is one opinion we finally share.

Wren stays out of the long grass now by my choice, not hers — she'd gladly charge into a bracken patch given the chance — and the post-walk ear check is as automatic as the lead-off-the-hook. The vet showed me how to part the fur and look, and what I'm looking for is small and easy to miss, which is exactly why I do it every time and not just when she shakes. A dog who shakes her head after a walk in dry, seeding country is telling you something specific, and the something is usually a barb working its way in, not water working its way out. The sedation and the scope were a one-time cost we won't repeat because the habit now catches the awn at the entrance, where a finger and a calm minute remove it before it travels. If you walk a spaniel, a setter, a retriever, or any dog with ears that flap and a nose for verges, make the check part of the routine and keep the summer paths short until you've looked. The grass awn that crept into Wren's ear was tiny and nearly did real damage because I waited, and the only thing smaller than the seed is the window you have before it reaches the drum, so use the window, every walk, without fail, and your dog keeps the hearing that the little brown arrow would happily take.