My grandfather used to tell us stories of growing up in rural South Dakota, where he would trap and skin small animals for extra income. When the other kids at school asked how he could stand the stench of the skunks his answer was always “smells like money to me!”
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skunks are smarter than most cats/dogs and some people raise them as pets after they’ve been de-scented, pbs has a cute commercial with one
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My border collie Tobbee has been skunked many many times. We have a kit ready at all times, one in car other in house.
When the skunking happens I advise quick response! Do not let sprayed dog into car or house, use a hose outside. You will find adding the baking soda hydrogen peroxide to dry skin/fur is much more effective than wetting the pet first. Also a thick paste is preferable because dogs often get hit in the face, so, a runny mixture will get into eyes ears mouth of dog and they resist that. A thick paste applied on dry fur doesn’t drip into eyes, ears, mouth which the victim of a skunk always appreciates.
The finer points…
Take off your clothes before they get skunked.
Add a bit of blue Dawn to the mix, it helps alot with the rinse.
Let the paste sit for 10 minutes so you can be done after the first wash.
Really work paste into fur since residual skunk spray can give dogs chemical burns such as damage to the mouth and nose and eyes and blistered skin.
Fun fact, the chemical is not gone when your done despite any effort to completely clean the skunked one, rather the hydrogen peroxide together with baking soda oxidizes skunk stink into a nearly identical compound humans can’t smell.
On another note, am I the only one who catches a brief whiff as I drive past a road kill skunk, this aroma is at the same time bad stinky but also mildly pleasant in the weed way. Is confusing.
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Skunk tales? I have a skunk tale.
So, my sister and I are heading down to get the horses when we notice a horrible stench, so horrible that it shuts down the ability to recognize it as anything other than pure stench. As though the field has now become The Bog of Stench.
One of the horses was standing apart from the others. Now horses are herd animals and tend to stick together, but every time he stepped towards them, they moved quickly away. Soon we discovered why.
Now, you need to understand that this horse had a homicidal hatred towards small furry creatures – anything smaller than a Great Dane. Normally he was the laziest, most forgiving creature going but show him a small mammal and he turned into a murder-beast. We figured out what happened when we saw a section of field stomped full of hoofprints and in the middle was something small that had once been black and white but was now mostly red and very, very flat.
We figured he harassed the skunk which then sprayed him. With any other horse this might have worked. It just made him madder.
Horses ain’t always the prey.
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My homeroom teacher had one. A rescue, she was orphaned as a baby. She was descented of course. Every so often the teacher would bring her to school, she loved hanging out in the classroom. One day she sat in my lap, I felt so privileged.
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My high school English teacher was horse crazy in a family that could afford it. Skunk got in the barn and she bought out the entire stock of tomato juice in a small Virginia town. She’ll never be forgotten.
Ex-hubby worked in a Pennsylvania diner with two friends. One had to work late on Saturday night so the other two waited at the back door adjacent the kitchen. Guess who just had to kick a pile of boxes next to the air conditioning compressor where a skunk had taken up residence. It emptied the diner and the boys ran like Jesse Owens. Place needed professional decontamination.
Warning to vacationers: it’s skunk mating season in southern Appalachia. Pennsylvania Poconos arrives next month. There is No Such Thing as skunk repellent for campers.
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My new band name!
(darn, can’t figure out how to link to the band name thread…)
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