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What Are Those Stringy Things Stuck On My Dogs This Spring

catkins from oak tree

Depending on where you live you might be seeing these stringy things scattered around your yard, stuck in your dog’s hair and covering your floors and furniture.

Every Spring we get these stringy things in our yard and they make a huge mess and clog the drain on the patio.

There’s actually a technical name for these stringy things and they’re called catkins and if you have an oak tree nearby you probably have them.

 

Oak trees don’t just drop acorns in the fall, they also produce long catkins that hang from the ends of their branches in the spring.

If your tree is shedding stringy stuff in spring, it’s probably because it’s engaging in its annual flowering where the male catkins let loose pounds of yellow pollen and then fall from the tree as new leaves push them out.

Other oaks produce catkins, but live oaks produce impressive batches of hanging blooms.

We don’t have an oak tree in our yard but our neighbors have a few of them so every spring the dogs have them hanging from their mouths, tails, and undercarriage.

If they are stuck on them then they track them through the house on my carpet, in my vents, in my bed and just about anywhere they go.

They kind of remind me of worms.

What Are Those Stringy Things Stuck On My Dogs This Spring

I also do my best to try and keep up with them but one windy day is all it takes for them to be everywhere again.

They’re like velcro as soon as they touch the dog’s body

The good news is that they’ll only last for a few weeks, the bad news is that they can be awful for allergy suffers.

What Are Those Stringy Things Stuck On My Dogs This Spring

If you these stringy things all over your house, don’t worry. Many of us with dogs and oak trees do too.

How to remove catkins from your dog’s hair

The best way to remove catkins from your dog’s hair is with a dog comb or a dog brush. 

Keeping your yard raked and your patio swept will also help cut down on these stringy things being all over your house. 

 

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Snej

Sunday 12th of June 2022

…..they fill and plug up the gutters too…..very annoying each year!

Lydia

Monday 23rd of May 2022

How timely to get this in todays newsletter! First I have these little flower like thingees that fall from the maple trees. Finally done with that these catkins come down. As quick as I brush them up in the yard, I come out 30 min later and UGH!!!! more of them- days on end. And the house looks pretty much like the outdoors as my pups bring in bushels of them on their fur. Sometimes I do not like spring! Then again in the fall I have to deal with all the leaves!

Jen

Tuesday 24th of May 2022

Hahaha. I keep blowing the catkins back in the yard with the leaf blower. It's a vicious cycle that won't end. I should probably trying sweeping them up, Hahaha

Antoinette

Monday 23rd of May 2022

Oh yes the weather was very hot past weekend, now cool again on long island NY. Cooper and Indie think the blue pool is for drinking!!! I add buckets of ice cubes and they bob for ice cubes. If only they would stick there feet in it? They dont mind a bath outside in summer, my hose gets connected to the hot water also. So nice baths in summer heat. And I CALL IT TREE SNOT!!!! ALL OVER rolling tumble weeds all over them. But they look cute covered with those stringy oak tree stuff, quick quick brushey wipe down since indie sneezes.

Jen

Tuesday 24th of May 2022

Odin is the same way with the pool1 He thinks that it's a big waterbowl!Lou loved the pool as a puppy last year so I'm hoping he likes this one. If not, Finn will have the pool all to himself!

jwashere

Sunday 23rd of May 2021

just came back in from sweeping them up from my driveway, took me about 20 minutes. just looked back outside to see if there was still any left in the trees, or if they were done falling. about a quarter of my work has been reversed.

Irene Sanchez

Saturday 16th of January 2021

Thank goodness for this article! I almost lost my mind thinking my dog had some sort of parasite living in her fur!

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