Yep, pull them out as best you can. I use pliers or hemostats.

The dogs that I have seen that were taken to the vet and sedated for removal almost always go after another porky, sometimes in less than a week. The dogs that we help down and removed with pliers never wanted anything else to do with one. I spent the better part of a day removing half a gallon coffee can of quills from 2 hounds once and until the day they died they never touched another one. Had a whole pack of hog dogs mob a porky one day and one of them killed the thing! Thought he was going to bleed to death before we got all of them out of him. If you do it the easy way they will learn nothing!

I am not sure what it is about porkies but if I correct a dog on deer they come running back with their tail between their legs. If I correct them on a bayed up porky they will back off but keep trying to get close. It is like they almost cant help themselves.

I have a property loaded with porkies that is owned by a serious bird hunter. He wants every porky dead. My young hounds were getting into them almost every night we ran there looking for coons. Luckily a fair amount of them were up in trees/brush so no quills. I had some they caught on the ground also and pulled lots of quills with my headlamp and a leatherman in the back of my truck. I was shocking them aggressively with every encounter, even when they took a second look at a dead one. Even with all the electricity I was still looking at 2-3 porkies a night. One of the last times I ran there I had a young pup that was barking bayed. My older male ran back to the truck whining and acting half scared but still looking like he wanted to go back to the pup. I walked over to the pup and sure enough he had the porky bayed in a bush but was staying a couple feet back. With me there the older dog got in on the bay but still stayed back. Their actions made me think the juice was finally getting through to them.

15 minutes later I see a porky loping along in front of me. The hounds were working behind me and hadn't seen it or smelled it. I figured it would be a good training experience since it was in the open and I could see the whole run start to finish. I walked to the porky trail and as soon as they hit it they were quickly on the porky but respecting it by a couple feet. I still gave them juice whenever they got what I felt was too close. I managed to get it killed without any quills in the dogs.

My original intent was to try to get the dogs to avoid porkies 100%. However, with the value of porkies and the dismal coon market if I could get them to just avoid getting quilled I am rethinking my stance on that. I think I am making progress. They are still trailing porkies but the last couple runs I haven't had to pull a quill. Feels like I am playing with fire but I also seem to be making progress.

I didn't kill all these but it would take a train load of coon to equal the value of the hair in this box!