I've ended more than a few bird hunting expeditions wrestling with a bird dog and wielding a pair of needle nosed pliers. I shoot every porky I see.
I'm with you buck. I've had some horrible porky experiences, and here's one of the horriblest.
My ex wife had a female great dane, (only about a hundred and forty pounder), that got mixed up with a porcupine one day when we were camping. I heard the commotion, and when I got to the scene the porky was pretty much bald; all the quills were in the dog, specifically the mouth. Her lips, gums, throat, snout, and face simply bristled with quills. The dog was pretty much strangling.
I got my hand on her collar and managed to drag that big bitch back to camp, and the work began. I've had folks tell me to cut the quills to remove the suction and they'll pull easier. That's a bunch of crap, don't bother. We had so many quills, varying from tiny to long, that I had to simply grab clumps of them and pull, sometimes ten at a time.
Trouble was the dog was so big and strong, she was kicking our butts, and we were just getting started. I had to do sompthin to make it easier, so I got my duct tape and hog tied all four legs together, and --viola!! no more struggle. Having her legs restrained was almost like giving her anesthetic. We were able to carefully get down and clean the quills up in a more leisurely fashion. It was unbelievable how many there were, but the dog had jaws like a crocodile, and had been able to fit the entire critter in her mouth.
Now here's the kicker. A few days later we spotted a few quills coming out the top or her snout. They had migrated completely through the roof of the mouth, sinus, and out the top.
The quills have microscopic barbs, and travel one direction. Also there are a lot of iddy biddy quills on a porcupine, and it's hard to get them all.
That dog recovered, and to my knowledge didn't suffer any serious problems in the future. I've had my bird dogs get them from time to time, but never as bad as that great dane. jd