Attack of the Killer Weed

By Kathryn Socie, 7-21-08

	Caption: Ugh, I hate that stuff. Those shoes are trashed.

If you’ve stepped outside at all lately you are probably painfully aware of that pesky, pokey, hideously ugly, low-lying grass coating most of Missoula’s Open Space (a good chunk of the West in general, really).  You know, the stuff that lodges into any and all footwear rendering it borderline trash-worthy. Yep, cheat grass. This obnoxious (I move to upgrade the term from noxious on behalf of cheat-loathers everywhere, who’s with me?), impossible to beat, fire-loving weed does more than ruin a good pair of socks.  Cheat grass kills.

I first caught wind of the cheat-grass-as-instrument-of-death concept at a potluck while listening to some dog-crazed woman go on about the many evils in the world threatening the life of her beloved four-legger.  She regaled us with stories of the usuals: chocolate, chicken bones, anti-freeze, raisins, xylitol (an artificial sweetener), and, finally, cheat grass. I had never heard of this particular plant killer. It makes sense that a dog can die from ingesting something toxic, even if that thing seems rather benign.  But cheat grass has an entirely different means of taking its victim. 

According to this woman, cheat grass enters a dog’s body through its toes and then migrates to its heart or lungs thereby killing the animal. A natural skeptic, I asked copious amounts of questions, like the possibility of alternative points of entry- she was sure it entered exclusively through a dog’s toes—and the mechanism by which grass and internal organ meet, an important piece to this puzzling scenario on which she was very unclear.  I was left contemplating the dynamic nature of this particular plant seed and its amazing prowess.  Somehow, something so small and non-sentient was capable of finding a direct route from toe to heart?  Incredible.  I immediately stamped “nut job” on my impression of this woman, but tucked this tidbit of information away for further research. 

It wasn’t until I was assisting a veterinarian pump liters of pus (good times) out of a dog’s lungs that the truth was revealed. See, cheat grass seed pods have one-way microscopic barbs that allow the seed to work its way into the skin and mucous membranes (not just the toes), but not work itself back out, a lot like a porcupine quill.  A tiny porcupine quill, mind you.  In the case of this particularly unlucky dog, the seed managed to work its way through the skin and was unfortunately finally stopped when it encountered lung tissue.  The excessive pus was, of course, the natural by-product of the dog’s body’s effort to combat the foreign object, produced at a level that made it impossible for the dog to breath and hence killing the poor guy. There was no migration “path” per se—no surprise there- it happened by sheer chance alone. Chance and cheat grass killed the dog.

The moral of the story: death by cheat grass is a rare, freakish occurrence.  So rare, many years have passed during which I repeatedly exposed my dogs, for hours on end no less, to the dangers of cheat grass.  Somehow, they emerged unscathed.  Luckily.  I would have to abandon life with dogs altogether if I fretted about the never-ending list of possible ways for my dogs’ demise like the potluck nut.  Certainly there are days when I want to build a dog-sized hamster ball, screw off the top, pop them in and head out into the big, bad, scary world with some level of protection.  Much as I want my dogs to live forever, I can’t deny that living life is inherently dangerous. 

I can worry about everything or head out for a dog-walk and enjoy our time together.