Anyone who has spent any time following a bird dog through a weedpatch has to marvel at nature’s efficiency of design.

I’m not referring to a good hunting dog’s ability to discern the subtle smell left by a rooster pheasant’s foot falls, though that is certainly a remarkable feat.

Rather, what truly is amazing is the array of seeds that are so efficient at hitching rides on our canine companions to ensure their far and wide propagation.

I am no expert in plant taxonomy, so I can’t spout the Latin names of the various pesky flora out there.

Nor do I know many of the colloquial names that farmers give the various weeds bristling with clingy, prickly seeds they annually do battle with.

I just know that they come in all shapes and sizes and that whatever their names — burdock, cockleburs, sandburs, stick-tights, beggar fleas — they are a pain, figuratively and sometimes literally, to deal with.

Of course, it is axiomatic that some of the best hunting spots usually are a haven for some or all of the aforementioned weed seeds.

But good hunting notwithstanding, three decades of following hunting dogs through such spots and the subsequent hours spent plucking the various hitchhikers from my canine partners’ underbellies still makes me wince when my dog steers into them.

Of course, some of this is my fault.

Rather than choosing a Chesapeake or Labrador retriever — low maintenance breeds that wear dense-haired coats of armor that repel most prickly seeds — I always opted for a English springer spaniel as my hunting partners.

They are wonderful hunting companions, but thin of skin and long of hair, they are regular burr and seed magnets.

Indeed, there are several spots on certain areas where I hunt that, birds or not, I do my best to steer my spaniel well clear of.

Yet, sometimes in spite of my best efforts, he still wanders into such infestations and then emerges looking like a pin cushion with his ears stuck together on top of his head.

Over the seasons, I have tried several remedies ranging from mineral oil to curry brushes to clean up a dog after such prickly encounters.

They all work to a degree. But the best method I have found is to lay the reluctant dog down and just begin picking, pulling, brushing and cutting.