Friday, July 24, 2015

What You Don't Want to Hear at Bedtime

It was 10:00 on Wednesday night ... bedtime.  I was upstairs turning down the bed, and my husband hollered up to me, 

"Connie ... Ruby got skunked!" 

This is not our skunk.  I got the photo HERE.


Bedtime had to wait, because I now had a dog to bathe.  I gathered up the ingredients for the as-if-by-magic, miraculously-effective de-skunking solution (1 quart of 3% peroxide, 1/4 cup baking soda, and 1-2 teaspoons dish detergent), but found that there was only a scant tablespoon of baking soda in the cupboard.  

Plan B.  In the aftermath of Daniel getting skunked in 2012 (an incident in which the magic peroxide/baking soda/dish detergent skunk solution worked perfectly), I bought and squirreled away a bottle of Nature's Miracle Skunk Odor Remover ... just in case.  I was very thankful to have it.

Ruby was really stinky, and not too happy to be saturated with chilly liquid from the bottle.

Dog shampoo and skunk odor remover, left exactly as they were when I finished with them late Wednesday night.


She was even less thrilled to get shampooed and thoroughly rinsed with the hose ...

Garden hose, right where I tossed it.


... even though the water I used was warm water from the kitchen sink ... thanks to my handy-dandy hose/faucet adapter.

Hose/faucet adapter on the kitchen window sill.


It was just after 11 pm by the time I finished rinsing Ruby and rubbed her down with a towel.  No more stinky skunk odor, thank goodness ... just normal, clean wet dog smell.  After all of this excitement, it took a little while for us to settle down and get sleepy again.  At about midnight, we tucked the dogs into their crates and headed up to bed.



Living out in the country like we do, it's not unusual for us to smell skunk on the breeze from time to time.  My neighbor told me last week that he saw a mama skunk and two young ones back by our barn.  I wonder if that is the same one that Ruby encountered?  

I believe in being prepared ... I have written 'baking soda' on my grocery list.

15 comments:

  1. Wow, bummer! We get the occasional raccoon or opossum in our yard or on the patio, but thank goodness we've never had a skunk! Naasssty... If I were you, I'd get a fresh bottle of that "Skunk-B-Gone" in addition to the baking soda, just in case.

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    1. Raccoons, opossums, groundhogs, foxes are common here.. Skunks are, too, I'm sorry to say. I count myself fortunate to only have two skunked dogs in the eight years that we have been here.

      I'm going to take your advice and grab another bottle of skunk solution next time I'm at PetsMart

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  2. Thank goodness you were prepared! Too dang bad about the late hour, that will sure upset a trip to bed.

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    1. It was that way with Daniel’s skunk experience, too … last turn-out before bedtime, didn’t see the skunk because it was outside the spread of our backyard floodlights. Trip to bed was definitely upset. As I was finishing with Ruby, I turned to my husband and said, “Yeah, I’m not sleepy anymore.”

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  3. Thankfully, we've not had to deal with skunks down here. I remember when we were visiting our dear Aunt and Uncle in upstate NY, when all of a sudden Uncle jumped out of his chair and ran around shutting windows in their mobile home. He had gotten a whiff of a skunk's perfume before the rest of us. :-)

    Glad you had a back up plan to rid poor ruby of her not so lovely scent.

    Have a nice weekend ~ FlowerLady

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ruby was outside on the deck, staring into the kitchen through the glass storm door while I was gathering supplies and equipment to bathe her. Just that little bit of proximity, and that load of skunk-to-the-face that she was wearing perfumed our whole downstairs. Surprisingly, she didn't seem bothered by the stink at all ... she was happy and wagging and looked simply confused as to why she wasn't being allowed inside.

      You have a nice weekend, too!

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  4. I woke up this morning to let Maggie out and opened the door to skunk smell, both of us stopped immediately. Maggie has been skunked twice, I keep the nature's miracle skunk stuff under the kitchen sink, for just in case.

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    1. That’s where our bottle of skunk stuff was! The only reason I knew it was there is because I cleared out underneath the kitchen sink one day last week, tossing the junk and arranging the stuff that was left.

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  5. Is it OK to laugh a little? I didn't know that was a real thing, getting skunked. And how undignified for poor Ruby. I'm a great believer in baking soda, but it is way more useful than I ever knew.
    Amalia
    xo

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  6. Oh the joy of being skunked! When I lived on Cape Cod our dog has a regular encounter with them...so stinky! Be prepared, got it!!

    Linda

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  7. We have done country life for about 8 years and have yet to have our dogs get skunked. Oh man.... NOT looking forward to that day for sure! At least you know how to deal with it. Poor Ruby...

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  8. Traps Connie. Traps. I believe skunks have every right to live....somewhere else.

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  9. Poor Ruby (and your noses) but at least you were prepared and all is fresh smelling again!

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  10. Even though we live in an urban area, there still is often the wafting of skunk in the evening or morning breeze. No skunk encounters...yet. Just possum a couple of times!

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  11. What bad news! I've thought about keeping that skunk shampoo at the house. If I buy it, then maybe I won't need it. Psychologists call it "magical thinking", but it works for me.

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