How to Help a Dog Stung by Nettle
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When I was a kid, I fell into nettles many, many times. It always happened when I was on vacation at my grandparents’ house. They have a farm and plenty of meadows to run on. I would play with their dogs and somehow ended up in nettles every single time. I remember the burning sensation on my legs and the little itchy bumps that appeared afterwards. I never considered that dogs could get affected by this too, I just assumed it’s something that stings only humans. I learned my lesson when Bailey chased a ball right into a big bush of nettles and for the next couple of hours all hell broke loose.
Bailey has a crazy prey drive. We keep on working on self-control and I can honestly say she’s come so far. But the fact of the matter is, when that ball is in the air, she’ll chase it into a bottomless pit if she has to. It’s always my responsibility to make sure the ball doesn’t fall anywhere dangerous. She is no stranger to searching for the ball in the bushes so I didn’t think much of it when I saw the ball land in some big bushes in our back yard. She went into them head-first and then stopped abruptly and jumped out. She started running around like crazy and I could tell she was in pain - but nonetheless that crazy turkey had a ball in her mouth! That’s how crazy her instinct is!
I called her to me and it took two or three calls for her to even hear me. When she finally ran towards me she dropped to the floor, dropped the ball and started rubbing her nose with her paws, rubbing it against the grass and whimpering. I took her in my arms and went to check the bushes. We have some hedgehogs (and a frog) living in the yard. I also thought it might have been a bee. But as soon as I saw nettle it clicked in my head.
I took her inside and had to set her on the floor to do what any sensible dog mom would do in a crisis: google the symptoms and diagnose my dog based on what the online forums have to say.
Lucky for me, this time the prognosis wasn’t too bad. A lot of people have had this happen to their dogs and most of them just said it’s about soothing the pain that will last a couple of hours.
If the pain doesn’t go away or the dog has any additional symptoms you should go to the vet!
Bailey still being pretty hysterical, I washed her snout and ears with a cloth drenched in cold water, then somehow managed to get her to her crate where she feels safe. As soon as she was inside she stopped freaking out and was just whimpering. The hardest thing is when you lock eyes with your furry little soulmate and you can tell they’re hurting but you don’t truly know what to do. I took some coconut oil and put it all over her snout and ears (the ears were red but had no bumps). Since little B is an avid lover of coconut oil she spent the next 15 minutes trying to lick it all off. Needless to say, she was successful and it made the situation worse because she was scratching herself really hard. Chilly has had some skin irritation issues and I use 100% aloe gel to help him - so I immediately thought of that. I put the aloe gel on the affected areas, closed the crate and after about 30 minutes of whimpering she finally fell asleep. I think she was super tired not only from the game in the yard but also from the pain and the hysterical running because of it. I monitored her closely (read: I obsessively checked on her every five minutes making sure she is still breathing) and when she woke up some hours later she was just fine!
I wanted to share this experience because I honestly had no idea that nettle could sting dogs and after reading some more information online, it seems that it mostly affects dogs with short hair (or no hair) and the areas where the skin is really thin (ears, snout, legs, stomach).
Hopefully this raises some awareness and you can make sure that your pooch doesn’t have the same painful experience - or of they do, it’s good to have aloe gel on hand! It would mean so much to me if you shared this article with your fellow dog moms because prevention is always key!
Have you ever had any experience with your dog being stung by nettle? How did you help them deal with the pain? Comment below so we can all learn from each other!
