Skunk Adventure

Last night about 10, Jesse Lou Baggett, our Ruthenian Shepherd, took on a skunk. His head and face were pretty much covered with noisome skunk oil. Meanwhile, his sidekick, William Jasper Stone the pit bull, got a dab of skunk oil on his face and, as Mrs Vache Folle put it, became the "drama queen" with fits of crying and rolling around on the rugs. I dabbed the spot with vinegar and pretty much removed his skunkiness.

Mrs Vache Folle kept Jesse off the furniture and immediately applied the "Welcome Home Pet Sitting De-skunkification Formula". Baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and liquid laundry detergent are mixed up and used to wash off the skunk oil. Darned if it did not work fairly well. Jesse still stinks, but it is bearable. Usually, a good skunking takes about 3 months to wear off completely, and even then a little skunk stench comes out if the dog gets wet.

Jesse, along with other dogs we have had, has been skunked at least four times. It is clearly an unpleasant experience for him, so I keep thinking that he will learn to avoid skunks. Mrs Vache Folle says that his skunk hatred overwhelms his reason and all he can think of is killing the varmint that sprayed him with that stinky stuff.

We have tried de-skunking products from the pet store and found them wanting. Tomato juice does nothing except make your dog smell like a skunk that spilled tomato juice on itself. Douche, due to its vinegar content, works a little bit, and diswashing liquid with grease cutting properties is also helpful since the skunk spray is oily and not water soluble. But our dog walker's remedy as described above has worked the best of anything we have tried. Hat tip to Steve Spiegel the Hundmeister.

I wish that there was some reasonably easy way to deter the skunk from entering the fenced area. That way there would be no need for him to deploy his chemical weapons.