"I spent £6k on vet bills for my dog after it got grass stuck up its nose"
A woman who spent £6k on an operation for her dog blames the council for not clearing grass properly - and wants her money back.
Michele Wingfield, 60, took pet pooch Masie, nine, to the vets when she couldn't stop sneezing.
A scan found grass seeds in the Westie's nose - which needed a £5k operation to remove.
More seeds were then found in Masie's paw two weeks later, which cost a further £800.
Michele, a carer from Hartley, Kent, now wants Kent County Council to pay her back - claiming workers didn't clear mounds of cut grass properly.
She said: "Masie started sneezing on our walk and it just got worse and worse.
“We had tried to avoid the cut grass but there were cars in the road and it was all over the pavement.
"Wildlife like foxes can’t avoid the cut grass - and no one's going to pay for the vet for them.
"The council cuts the grass five times a year. They could do it before the seed heads form but they don't, and they could clear up.
"Leaving grass with seed darts on lying around just makes the hazard greater by generating more grass.
"I think it's negligent."
Michele and daughter Callie Wingfield, 38, took Masie to the vets on July 17.
They say they had taken her for a walk the day before, where they had encountered piles of cut grass.
Vets said Masie - who is Callie's support dog - needed surgery and she was taken to the Ralph, a specialist centre in Marlow, Bucks., on July 20.
And she then needed a further op on her paw, after Michelle spotted her nibbling away.
Michele said: "Masie was sneezing so much she couldn't sleep.
"It was awful watching her - she was extremely distressed and we were terrified.
"We just want to raise awareness because grass seed is really dangerous and we didn't know about it before this happened.
"Once it gets in it can move through the body and even get in to the brain, and toxins can get into the blood.
“That would have happened to Masie if we hadn’t had it removed.
"Our vets are amazing but treatment is so expensive.
"We're petrified about taking the dogs out now because we can't afford the risk of something like this happening again."
Michele and Callie have submitted a claim for £6,000 to Kent County Council.
A council spokesperson said: "We have received a claim for compensation by a member of the public and are investigating this.
“Details of how we maintain grass on highway land is published on our website."
Michele Wingfield, 60, took pet pooch Masie, nine, to the vets when she couldn't stop sneezing.
A scan found grass seeds in the Westie's nose - which needed a £5k operation to remove.
More seeds were then found in Masie's paw two weeks later, which cost a further £800.
Michele, a carer from Hartley, Kent, now wants Kent County Council to pay her back - claiming workers didn't clear mounds of cut grass properly.
She said: "Masie started sneezing on our walk and it just got worse and worse.
“We had tried to avoid the cut grass but there were cars in the road and it was all over the pavement.
"Wildlife like foxes can’t avoid the cut grass - and no one's going to pay for the vet for them.
"The council cuts the grass five times a year. They could do it before the seed heads form but they don't, and they could clear up.
"Leaving grass with seed darts on lying around just makes the hazard greater by generating more grass.
"I think it's negligent."
Michele and daughter Callie Wingfield, 38, took Masie to the vets on July 17.
They say they had taken her for a walk the day before, where they had encountered piles of cut grass.
Vets said Masie - who is Callie's support dog - needed surgery and she was taken to the Ralph, a specialist centre in Marlow, Bucks., on July 20.
And she then needed a further op on her paw, after Michelle spotted her nibbling away.
Michele said: "Masie was sneezing so much she couldn't sleep.
"It was awful watching her - she was extremely distressed and we were terrified.
"We just want to raise awareness because grass seed is really dangerous and we didn't know about it before this happened.
"Once it gets in it can move through the body and even get in to the brain, and toxins can get into the blood.
“That would have happened to Masie if we hadn’t had it removed.
"Our vets are amazing but treatment is so expensive.
"We're petrified about taking the dogs out now because we can't afford the risk of something like this happening again."
Michele and Callie have submitted a claim for £6,000 to Kent County Council.
A council spokesperson said: "We have received a claim for compensation by a member of the public and are investigating this.
“Details of how we maintain grass on highway land is published on our website."
Transcript
00:00 I'm Callie Wingfield and I'm Michelle Wingfield and we've got Maisie and Bella here.
00:09 Bella and Maisie are both nine years old, they're sisters and in July Maisie got a grass seed
00:16 called the foxtail barley up her nose. She had to go to the Ralph in Marlow but before that she
00:25 had to have an emergency vet appointment at Park Vets who recommended that she has a CAT scan
00:32 and a rhinoscopy so they booked the emergency appointment at the Ralph. A couple of days later
00:37 we went there and Maisie had the grass seed removed from her nose from the rhinoscopy but
00:44 two weeks later we actually found another foxtail barley grass seed in her paw and the vet notes did
00:51 actually say that there was actually signs of other entry wounds in her paws as well from other
00:58 foxtail barleys. So she basically had to have surgery at the Ralph which cost a significant
01:07 amount of money and then she went to Park Vets not that long after and they investigated her
01:13 paw for the grass seed as well. So all in all it's cost us just under £6,000 for the grass seeds.
01:21 I feel this is a really important issue that needs to be addressed with the councils because
01:28 they're cutting the foxtail barley and they're actually leaving the remnants on the floor
01:33 and on the grass verges so what that actually does is it not only causes a health and safety risk to
01:41 animals and wildlife and small children if there was a fall but also they're multiplying the
01:47 problem because the grass seeds are going back into the soil so it is quite a big hazard that
01:54 yeah really needs to be dealt with. So I feel that the councils need to cut the grass more frequently
02:00 so the foxtail barley doesn't grow those sort of dangerous spiky seeds or they need to collect the
02:07 grass cuttings and remove them because otherwise the issue just sort of multiplies. What they
02:14 currently do is they just use trimmers and then just leave the remnants in bulks. A lot of the
02:21 time it's on the pavement, on the grass verges and on the road so it makes it really hard to avoid
02:28 the problem but it's just made us petrified to walk the dogs. They don't like us at the moment
02:35 because we constantly have to check their paws and it's quite uncomfortable for them having to
02:42 you know spread the paws open and check inside, it's quite a distress for them
02:47 and also it's the fear of you know if this was to happen again we just couldn't afford it.
02:52 This was something that there was no choice she had to have the rhinoscopy, she had to have the
02:58 CAT scan because it would have, well more than likely it would have traveled to the brain.
03:03 So when the rhinoscopy was done you could actually see from the images that it was
03:10 quite high up in the soft tissue of her nose and I think the problem with the grass seeds as well
03:16 is where they're quite sort of spiky it's quite hard for them to actually come out there once
03:21 they're up there they're up there but they can actually enter the paws and sort of travel through
03:27 the body as well and they do have toxins, they can go under the armpits, through the chest cavity,
03:35 they're quite dangerous because they're very sharp and especially like with the cost of living and
03:41 the vet prices it's yeah it was really difficult. I got very upset when Maisie went down to have
03:50 the procedure because they told me that it was quite heavy on her, the dye was quite heavy on
03:55 her kidneys so it was a risk having that done as well.
04:02 you
04:02 [BLANK_AUDIO]