By CLAUDI FILSI
Via della Spiga is one of the most
exclusive shopping streets in Milan,
with Bvlgari, Prada and Bottega Veneta
among its best-known boutiques.
But there is another Via della Spiga —
not only in Italy — that threatens more
than one’s bank account. It can
damage and possibly kill unwitting
dogs if their owners don’t react in
timely fashion.
Spiga in Italian means grass seed
head, and these insidious, ubiquitous
plant seeds can easily attach to the
inside of a dog’s ears, sometimes
the throat or inside the nose. Without
prompt medical attention, they can
cause permanent injury to the eardrum,
throat or nasal passage, provoke
swelling and might even cause
death by infection or interfering with
the dog’s breathing.
I learned this the hard way —
fortunately not TOO hard — recently
when my min-pin mixed breed, Giada, and I were out for her morning walk. She wanted
to go to her usual lizard-chasing spot, a grassy strip that runs along a stone wall, where
she had set her personal best of catching seven lizards in half an hour not two weeks
earlier.
She got one, caught the tail of another, missed two, then suddenly — while diving down
to pull one out from behind a loose brick hidden by grass — she pulled back, yelping. At
first I thought she might have stepped on a piece of glass, as there are lots of broken
bottles around. Or it could have been a needle; there are those too. I hadn’t seen any
bees, so discounted the probability of a bee sting.
But she started shaking her head vigorously, then looked up at me as if to say, “Make it
stop.” I figured a bug of some kind had flown into her ear. She came up to me as if to
have me extract it and I tried rubbing her ear from the base, hoping to persuade the
insect — if it were an insect — to fly out. She yelped a bit if I touched her ear in a cer-tain
spot, but she didn’t react aggressively.
So I didn’t think the whatever-it-was had done any profound damage, but decided it was
wiser to be proactive and go to the vet to get her ear checked out than to wait in the hopes
that the bug would fly out of its own accord. Better to react quickly and avoid more
egregious damage later on. So we walked straight to the vet, where, fortunately, there
were no other patients waiting. I told Dr. Milani what I had observed, asked if it might be
an insect, and apologized if I might have been overreacting.
“It sounds like a spiga to me,” he said. “Hold Giada on the table with your hand around
her muzzle. Some dogs, most dogs, are very sensitive when a spiga gets into their ear.”
I held Giada as he instructed and he looked in. Even without his magnifying glass, he
saw it. “Yup, it is a spiga. Very common with cocker spaniels and short-legged, long-
eared dogs, not so common with dogs like yours that have upright ears.”
“Well, Giada was chasing lizards so her head was buried in the grass,” I explained.
“If your dog is stoic, maybe I can remove it without anesthesia,” he said. “It pinches when
you pull it out but there are a few dogs that don’t mind very much. She has to stay still,
though, so I can get it all out at one time, and not damage the eardrum. It is lying on her
eardrum.”
So I held Giada again, my arm around her, one hand cupping her muzzle. But as soon as
Dr. Milani reached into her ear, she jerked. “Most dogs need the anesthesia,” he said
laconically. “Fine,” I said. “Better for her because she won’t feel any pain. But please keep
the anesthesia light.”
“I use a special kind of anesthesia called medetomidine,” he said. “It was originally
developed for veterinary work with animals in the wild. It puts them out quickly, but is
very light. They may feel something but they won’t react. In fact, it is most often used as a
pre-anesthetic. You use 1/7 or 1/8 the strength you would use for complete anesthesia.
As soon as you are done, you put an antidote in their vein called atipamezole and they
come out of it right away, able to stand and move around almost at once. If not, with
wild animals you have the problem that an elephant, say, comes out of normal
anesthesia groggy and unable to stand. He falls down and can damage himself
seriously. Or a zebra — you put it out and it stays out after you have gone, and a predator
gets it before it wakes up.
“You give a small dose to a dog — how much does Giada weigh? 20 pounds, okay —
and do your procedure, then inject the atipamezole and she is standing in five minutes
and walks out of here on her own steam. Did she eat this morning? If she did, she might
throw up but it’s nothing serious.”
“No, I don’t feed her till after her morning walk,” I said while Milani was giving the initial
injection. She sat with me on the examining table for about three minutes, then put her
head down, then stretched out her front paws, trembling (“that’s normal,” said Milani),
and seemed to doze off. She didn’t throw up, didn’t act distressed, simply a gently
accelerated nap.
Milani dove into Giada’s ear with a tweezers and extracted a large grass seed head. It
looked like a miniature shaft of wheat.
“It was lying against the eardrum and scratched it somewhat. There is a little blood but
fortunately no permanent damage,” he reported. He put an antibiotic in the ear and told
me that Giada might scratch at her ear for a day or so, that the antibiotic might itch. Then
he whipped out another needle and stuck it in her front leg.
“If I got it right in her vein, she should come out of it in about five minutes. If not, it will take
longer. Here, put her on the floor.” I did so and sat right down next to her, so the first thing
she would feel when she woke up was me.
“If she continues to shake her ear tomorrow, then go to the pharmacy with this
prescription,” he said, handing me a piece of paper (which I wound up not needing).
Giada was vaguely awake in five minutes but we stayed on terra ferma for another 10 just
to make sure she could walk comfortably and wouldn’t be barfing roadside. I am always
equipped with plastic bags to pick up her number twos, but there is no way to pick
upchuck.
As Dr. Milani was preparing my bill ($100, much of which was for the anesthesia, just as
in human operations), he told me that spighe can enter the nose and the throat as well
as the ear, and present a far greater danger to a dog’s health. The swelling can obstruct
swallowing and breathing, and could conceivably result in death.
“All I can tell you is not to let your dog go where you see spighe. A client of mine last year
brought his dog in FIVE TIMES to remove them. That’s complete irresponsibility on the
part of the dog owner.”
Irresponsibility is not fashionable, whether or not you live on Via della Spiga.
Published in the July 2007 edition of The Animal Companion.
Via della Spiga is one of the most
exclusive shopping streets in Milan,
with Bvlgari, Prada and Bottega Veneta
among its best-known boutiques.
But there is another Via della Spiga —
not only in Italy — that threatens more
than one’s bank account. It can
damage and possibly kill unwitting
dogs if their owners don’t react in
timely fashion.
Spiga in Italian means grass seed
head, and these insidious, ubiquitous
plant seeds can easily attach to the
inside of a dog’s ears, sometimes
the throat or inside the nose. Without
prompt medical attention, they can
cause permanent injury to the eardrum,
throat or nasal passage, provoke
swelling and might even cause
death by infection or interfering with
the dog’s breathing.
I learned this the hard way —
fortunately not TOO hard — recently
when my min-pin mixed breed, Giada, and I were out for her morning walk. She wanted
to go to her usual lizard-chasing spot, a grassy strip that runs along a stone wall, where
she had set her personal best of catching seven lizards in half an hour not two weeks
earlier.
She got one, caught the tail of another, missed two, then suddenly — while diving down
to pull one out from behind a loose brick hidden by grass — she pulled back, yelping. At
first I thought she might have stepped on a piece of glass, as there are lots of broken
bottles around. Or it could have been a needle; there are those too. I hadn’t seen any
bees, so discounted the probability of a bee sting.
But she started shaking her head vigorously, then looked up at me as if to say, “Make it
stop.” I figured a bug of some kind had flown into her ear. She came up to me as if to
have me extract it and I tried rubbing her ear from the base, hoping to persuade the
insect — if it were an insect — to fly out. She yelped a bit if I touched her ear in a cer-tain
spot, but she didn’t react aggressively.
So I didn’t think the whatever-it-was had done any profound damage, but decided it was
wiser to be proactive and go to the vet to get her ear checked out than to wait in the hopes
that the bug would fly out of its own accord. Better to react quickly and avoid more
egregious damage later on. So we walked straight to the vet, where, fortunately, there
were no other patients waiting. I told Dr. Milani what I had observed, asked if it might be
an insect, and apologized if I might have been overreacting.
“It sounds like a spiga to me,” he said. “Hold Giada on the table with your hand around
her muzzle. Some dogs, most dogs, are very sensitive when a spiga gets into their ear.”
I held Giada as he instructed and he looked in. Even without his magnifying glass, he
saw it. “Yup, it is a spiga. Very common with cocker spaniels and short-legged, long-
eared dogs, not so common with dogs like yours that have upright ears.”
“Well, Giada was chasing lizards so her head was buried in the grass,” I explained.
“If your dog is stoic, maybe I can remove it without anesthesia,” he said. “It pinches when
you pull it out but there are a few dogs that don’t mind very much. She has to stay still,
though, so I can get it all out at one time, and not damage the eardrum. It is lying on her
eardrum.”
So I held Giada again, my arm around her, one hand cupping her muzzle. But as soon as
Dr. Milani reached into her ear, she jerked. “Most dogs need the anesthesia,” he said
laconically. “Fine,” I said. “Better for her because she won’t feel any pain. But please keep
the anesthesia light.”
“I use a special kind of anesthesia called medetomidine,” he said. “It was originally
developed for veterinary work with animals in the wild. It puts them out quickly, but is
very light. They may feel something but they won’t react. In fact, it is most often used as a
pre-anesthetic. You use 1/7 or 1/8 the strength you would use for complete anesthesia.
As soon as you are done, you put an antidote in their vein called atipamezole and they
come out of it right away, able to stand and move around almost at once. If not, with
wild animals you have the problem that an elephant, say, comes out of normal
anesthesia groggy and unable to stand. He falls down and can damage himself
seriously. Or a zebra — you put it out and it stays out after you have gone, and a predator
gets it before it wakes up.
“You give a small dose to a dog — how much does Giada weigh? 20 pounds, okay —
and do your procedure, then inject the atipamezole and she is standing in five minutes
and walks out of here on her own steam. Did she eat this morning? If she did, she might
throw up but it’s nothing serious.”
“No, I don’t feed her till after her morning walk,” I said while Milani was giving the initial
injection. She sat with me on the examining table for about three minutes, then put her
head down, then stretched out her front paws, trembling (“that’s normal,” said Milani),
and seemed to doze off. She didn’t throw up, didn’t act distressed, simply a gently
accelerated nap.
Milani dove into Giada’s ear with a tweezers and extracted a large grass seed head. It
looked like a miniature shaft of wheat.
“It was lying against the eardrum and scratched it somewhat. There is a little blood but
fortunately no permanent damage,” he reported. He put an antibiotic in the ear and told
me that Giada might scratch at her ear for a day or so, that the antibiotic might itch. Then
he whipped out another needle and stuck it in her front leg.
“If I got it right in her vein, she should come out of it in about five minutes. If not, it will take
longer. Here, put her on the floor.” I did so and sat right down next to her, so the first thing
she would feel when she woke up was me.
“If she continues to shake her ear tomorrow, then go to the pharmacy with this
prescription,” he said, handing me a piece of paper (which I wound up not needing).
Giada was vaguely awake in five minutes but we stayed on terra ferma for another 10 just
to make sure she could walk comfortably and wouldn’t be barfing roadside. I am always
equipped with plastic bags to pick up her number twos, but there is no way to pick
upchuck.
As Dr. Milani was preparing my bill ($100, much of which was for the anesthesia, just as
in human operations), he told me that spighe can enter the nose and the throat as well
as the ear, and present a far greater danger to a dog’s health. The swelling can obstruct
swallowing and breathing, and could conceivably result in death.
“All I can tell you is not to let your dog go where you see spighe. A client of mine last year
brought his dog in FIVE TIMES to remove them. That’s complete irresponsibility on the
part of the dog owner.”
Irresponsibility is not fashionable, whether or not you live on Via della Spiga.
Published in the July 2007 edition of The Animal Companion.
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