Skunked!

Well, it finally happened to me!  My dogs got skunked! It was, of course about 9:30pm, and I had just put the baby to bed. My husband was reading the 4-year-old his story and I let the dogs out into my fenced-in backyard. I then went downstairs to flip over the day’s load of laundry.  Several minutes later, when coming back upstairs, I could smell the familiar aroma of a skunk outside.  I’ve smelled it before, time to bring the dogs in, just in case.  As I opened the door, it was different, and the dogs were nowhere in sight.  Oh crap.  I ran in and got some shoes and flew out into the yard.  As I stepped into the thick stench, I could see Farley running back and forth behind the trees, frothing from his mouth.  I called and both dogs immediately came to me, eyes glazed over and saliva dripping steadily from their muzzles.  As I grabbed each dog and sniffed them, neither dog seemed to smell as bad up close as the air around us did…maybe they had seen the skunk, but not gotten sprayed?  I prayed, and we went into the house.

As my husband came down the hall, he asked if the dogs were in because he could smell a skunk.  I worriedly smiled at him as he came around the corner and we both realized they brought the smell in.  We inspected the dogs.  Again, neither seemed particularly stinky up close, but there was an increasingly obvious odor filling the house.

Being a dog trainer, I have a close friend who is a groomer, THANK GOODNESS!  I frantically called: “Hi Christa, are you still up?  Could you do me a REALLY HUGE favor?  Could you bring me some de-skunker-stuff right now, PLEASE?”  Lucky for me (and my dogs), she was up, and she did come right over.  She had a recipe for a magical skunk-smell remover that simply amazed me and I had to share it with you.

Normally, it is recommended to allow the stinky dog to air out for a day prior to bathing him.  We did not do that.  We immediately put both dogs into the tub.  The recipe is this (makes enough for 2 medium sized dogs):

3 bottles of hydrogen peroxide

2 Tablespoons of baking soda

1 cup of Dawn®  

Mix in a bucket, put dog in tub, fairly-filled with water.  Pour mixture over dog and scrub in good.  Leave on for at least 5 minutes.  Drain tub and rinse dog.  Then shampoo with the pleasant-smelling doggy-shampoo of your choice.  Rinse.  Towel dry.  I also soaked their collars in the remaining mixture (enough to cover the collars) overnight.

In the morning, I dumped the mixture, along with a cup of detergent and a cup of bleach into the washer with the towels I used to dry them. 

I am happy and relieved to report that there is only an occasional hint of the skunk smell today.  I will say that I don’t think my dogs took a direct hit.  Christa tells me that it often takes daily baths for a week or more to eliminate the odor.  But still, I am amazed!  Oh, I also sprayed Listerine into their mouths, as I always do when they kill something (I found the dead skunk this morning, under the trees).  RIP Mr. LePew.