TheBanyanTree: Skunk!

[Theta Brentnall]

We've been traveling this summer and just got home this week, so we've missed all the adventures with skunks that happened here this year. Apparently there was a bumper crop of skunks this summer, and a lot of people and dogs have had some close encounters. Yesterday a neighbor was telling me about the cute little skunk family that has been spotted in our area, so Sunday night, when Gerry let Gypsy out for her final potty break of the evening, I said, "You might want to check for skunks first ". He turned around and said, "What?"  And then we heard the yelping and Gypsy was making a mad dash for the door.  

Yes. Skunked. 

Now, Gypsy is a Keeshond. That's a 20 lb dog with another 10 pounds of hair.  She made a mad dash through the house with Gerry chasing after her, yelling, "Go, go, go!" He shooed her down the stairs and out the back door into the fenced yard. Although she didn't stop and didn't touch a thing except the rug under her feet, the house was immediately redolent of eau de skunk.  So there we were with a skunked dog at 11:30 at night.  It's a pretty sure thing that nothing is open at that hour, so we needed to fall back on home remedies. 


I've read that tomato juice doesn't work, and who has vast quantities of tomato juice handy anyway, so I googled de-skunking recipes and found the one that everyone said was best was a quart of hydrogen peroxide, a quarter cup of baking soda and a squirt of Dawn. I had the baking soda. I had the Dawn. I had about two inches of hydrogen peroxide that was so old it had deteriorated to water.  I ended up just powdering her with baking soda and brushing it out. It helped. A little. Or maybe my nose had just shut down. Poor dog ended up spending the night in the garage, which offended her mightily.  I called the local wash-the-dog-yourself place as soon as they opened the next morning, only to hear that they were out of de-skunk shampoo. But the kind lady said their groomers had it, so we should bring her in and let them handle it. Best idea ever!   

So the dog doesn't smell too bad any more, but my car, from getting her to the groomer, is a little eye-watering and despite frequent and copious applications of Febreze the living room and stairs still occasionally have a whiff of skunk. And she goes out to do her dog business on the end of a leash!

Theta

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