This incident is behind us, but I thought I would share the pictures and story.

TL;DR: two dogs, one porcupine. See the pictures below to find out who won!

P.S. Sorry the images are so big. According to /u/drunkenninja, the image module is slightly broken and should be fixed next week. Until then, all images are full width.

The Story

So we have acreage and our dogs like to explore our property. They will typically be 'wild' for hours at a time. There are no water sources on our property, so once they get thirsty, they come home. Tuesday was no different. My wife was working on her thesis (1/4 mile away in a separate cabin) and I was sitting at the table getting ready to eat lunch when my younger puppy came running up to the door like she was having a blast. She had a few porcupine quills in her muzzle.

So... I grabbed the pliers and called my other dog. I heard a yelp in the woods so I decided that the young dog can wait until I see what the older dog looked like. We go marching into the woods with my young dog just happy as can be. Every 15-30 seconds I would call my dog and she would yelp in response. We were getting closer to each other. Once we got close, I still couldn't see my dog, but the puppy went running off. I assumed that she was running towards my other dog (or the porcupine... or a squirrel). I followed her and once I get over the ridge, this is the face that greeted me.

My first thought was "WOW, I've never seen it that bad. Notice her paws. They were even in her tail. With that, I decided that pliers wouldn't do the job. We needed to get to the vet quick (30 miles away... 5 of those miles are winding up and down hills). The old dog was able to walk alright and whenever she stopped she would try to rub at her face, so I decided it was best to keep her walking and not try to carry her. We walked the 1/4-1/3 of a mile to go grab my wife and rush to the vet. I needed her to keep the old dog from rubbing her face on the floor of the car.

So, we made it to the vet in record time. I called on our way, so they were ready for us with some sedative. The first thing the vet did after administering the sedative was ask if she could take a picture because it was quite impressive.

About an hour and a half later our dog walks out clean-faced.

At this point, she's still high on O2 so she can't stand for very long. No major life decisions or operating heavy equipment for the rest of the day for this dog!

I have a few take-aways from this event.

1. These dogs really love each other.

2. I really believe that they communicate with each other. I'm certain that my old dog told my young dog to come get me. That or my young dog made that choice on her own because she knew I would know what to do.

3. I really believe that my dog used sound to help me find her. Her tongue had about 20 quills through it and she couldn't close her mouth, so each time she yelped had to be painful, but she did it so that I could find her.