by Hardscrabble Farmer
The Burning Platform
The other morning one of the dogs was waiting for me at the door with a muzzle full of porcupine quills. The look on his face, a mix of pain and humiliation almost broke my heart. He’d done it before and I was certain he’d learned his lesson, but a male that hasn’t been neutered is a wild card. I dressed quickly and grabbed a pair of work gloves then took him into the shop with me and set to work with a pair of hemostats and patience. There is no easy way to remove quills but if you grasp them firmly about a half inch from where they protrude in order to get a good grip on each one and pull in the opposite direction of where it entered, you stand a fair chance of extracting them intact.