My little dog just brought in a hedgehog...

[ScrappyMalloy]

She has spent the last few evenings harassing this poor hedgehog, whenever she is put for a wee (between hiding from fireworks) but this is a new one on me. How does that even work? Surely it would hurt?

I have put said hedgepig out and it seems fine, but ddog is strutting round the house like Elvis in Vegas

Is this NORMAL?

I had a Westie that attacked a hedgehog in the garden when it was dark.
However, the dog got the worst of it - bleeding lips from the hedgehogs spines and its FLEAS jumping around on her head.

So 11pm and I was despining and defleaing said dog, not to mention wiping the blood off her lips. Her coat was white so everything could be seen easily. So check for hedgehog fleas on your little dog and spines.

This happened regularly every dark evening in the garden.

OH no - that sounds painful, ouch. And fleas! I never thought of fleas

I have always had terriers before, and I have rescued hedgehogs from being rolled around by overenthusiastic dogs

This one is a shih tzu and she is a bit bizarre by any standard. But I am amazed that she is unharmed, especiallY as her mouth is so soft.

The hedgehog was fine and bustled off once I put it outside

Mine's just come in from barking at a hedgehog. She's scared of them I think! Bloody idiot

My JRT used to do this all the time in our old house. I think he would get cold poking it outside so would bring it in via the cat flap!! And plonk it in his basket to watch. Totally flea ridden things. I used to have to turf it out in a cardboard box and de flea the house again.
I have no idea how he did it either.

My Westie never carried the hedgehog into the house but the garden was enormous and so was the hedgehog!
I caught it once in the late afternoon, so dashed indoors to get my thick padded oven gloves on and picked it up.
It was very aggressive and wriggled and hissed at me as I bent over the wire sheep fence to place it on the dyke at back of garden.
It braced itself with anger and determination and ran back under the wire fence into my garden.
I gave up.

Fleas are hedgehog specific so don't worry about them. They are especially adapted type because of the spines.
Also fewer hedgehogs are getting them as they aren't meeting other hedgehogs anymore to spread them.

I had a dog once who would cock his leg on hedgehogs if they curled up...that always confused me.

He was like, ooh little beastie, play with me it's turned into a spikey ball, better pee on it

Our puppy keeps bringing lizards into the house - even though I hate them it's definitely better than hedgehogs!!

tabulah Eric pees on hedgehogs too He tries to entice them to play and then pees on them when they obviously won't play. He also tries to pee on frogs and gets really grumpy when they won't sit still long enough.

We have had no more hedgehogs in the so far, although the dozy dog was running around the garden with it in her mouth yesterday. She is a newish (to us) rescue dog, and possibly has never come across little spikey critters before. She doesn't pee on it, but has taken to rolling it around with her nose like a bristley ball.

Thanks for the reassurance about the fleas - I have deflead her anyway to be on the safe side.

DDog1 went through a phase. Bizarrely there's no reason why a hedgehog should be in our small and concrete back yard and yet it kept coming back. It would just lie there rather resignedly, I would don the fire poking gloves and put it outside, DDog1 would look crestfallen and we would watch it toddle off into the dark then deflea the dog bed