We sat out on the deck last night enjoying the unusually cool Indiana summer after having invited a friend for dinner. Over the course of the evening two more neighbors joined us for drinks and evening turned to night. Our chief irritation and pre-occupation was keeping those relentless striped mosquitoes at bay.
That was all we worried about until 10:45pm, when everyone started wondering what the hell that awful smell was? Yup. My dog, Mabel, got skunked. Luckily it was a glancing blow and not a direct hit. A mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish soap seemed to work best to remove the smell. After bathing the dog I then washed the towels and her collar in hot water and vinegar. Her collar still smelled like skunk this morning so it is now soaking in peroxide and baking soda.
I have a headache from the smell which seems to have infiltrated our bedroom (she was sprayed in the flower bed under the bedroom side-window–I know because I lifted up a drooping echinacea flower stem in that flower bed this morning only to get a droplet of skunk liquid on my arm. More peroxide and baking soda, please). I’m boiling vinegar on the stove to try to get rid of the smell in the house. It is much hotter today so we have the air conditioning on. I get the feeling we are simply recycling the misery.
Oh yuck Jane. I use to have to wash dogs at the animal hospital when they had been skunked. We soaked them in tomato juice. I hope you and Mable are skunk stink free soon.
Ewwwwww…skunk fluid at close range is awful. We had a cat who got skunked right between the eyes. We were wondering what the smell was, opened the door and the cat rushed in and started rubbing its face on the carpet. We lived with that smell for months! Just when we thought it was gone, we’d have a humid day, and it started all over. Eventually it did disappear. The cat was an outdoor kitty for the rest of the summer!
We use to buy it by the half gallon in cans. It would take a few, letting it soak in then rinse then soak again. I would have to hold them in a waist high tub so they did not try to shake it off. It is no wonder I went off to college to find an easier job- nursing!
Leprosy? Really? I did not know that. I am more afraid of ebola right now. My son is going to Senegal next year. It is not in Senegal but I still worry.
Skunk stink is so bad, lol. A few years ago I was live trapping chipmunks that were undermining our cellar stairs and we caught a skunk. Wonderful. I went out with a big tarp to drop over the trap so I could try to let it out, as I got a couple feet away my husband wanders around, grabs the hose, and sprays the skunk. I ran, and yelled at him. His reasoning was he was distracting it! Amazingly the skunk didn’t spray, but looked awful sorry soaked with cold water. I did let him out, and didn’ t get sprayed.
I learned a couple things, my husband is an idiot and as long as you don’t scare 'em you can release a skunk from a livetrap without being sprayed.
Oh look, AC, you mean, your husband is NOT an idiot, don't you? This skunk talk is so funny! This is no lie: I was heading to town (we live in the country) this evening around dusk and a really scruffy-looking skunk waddled across the road in front of me-luckily I was able to swerve and miss it!
Hey, you southerners, I wish those creepy opossums would stay down there. They've migrated up to MN--we were seeing more and more of them the past several years...apparently, our winters were getting milder. But, this past winter was the coldest on record for like a hundred years and guess what! I haven't seen one 'possum yet this summer!