Meeting The "Devil"

Hitting the back roads... you just never know what you many encounter!  However this time was just a little different... something called the "devil" was luring in the desert.

While driving in the back country; we kept admiring these cactus, which later found out they are named Devil Cholla. 

A nice close-up of the devils!! As seen here they are on a stem, but also can grow on the ground as a mat. The barbed spines will attach themselves to anything, but not easily removed, which is how they get their name.

I guess you might be asking, why all the information about this cactus....


Well our four-legged buddy decided to explore the area as we were trying to decide our route along the mountain. As I turned around to see where he might have gone to, I find him desperately trying to get the barbed spines out of his feet. ;( It freaked me out, because Max was covered in these stems and now had a mouth full of them too. We had to carry him out, them the battle began to try and remove them. Not only was Max bleeding, so was both of us trying to remove these "devils" (even gloves didn't help).      Max is still licking his wounds.

After walking, scraping my boots against rocks, these stems are still in my boots, so you can just image what our poor boy must have been like. I was too shaken up to even think of getting a picture of Max, so you can only try to imagine for yourself. Just hope he doesn't have any down his throat which could cause him any pain.  Not a fun experience for any of us!!