Last night I reaped the benefits of social networking, facebook in particular.
We finally finished our house on the farm and moved there on Friday. Around 8pm on Sunday our dog started going nuts inside the house, running from window to window, fully on point. Yep, this guy – Jameson. You may remember him from previous posts – 1/2 Airedale, 1/4 Bouvier, and 1/4 everything else. He has become quite the farm dog.
My wife headed to the door to unleash the beast and as the words “DON’T” were exiting my mouth he was off to the races. And I mean off to the races. We have clocked him at over 25 miles per hour in our pickup truck.
I hadn’t seen the real reason he was so wound up but wanted to see before we let him loose, where my wife was simply concerned about her horses and wanted him to turn a coyote or whatever inside out. Sadly for us, I was right. It was a skunk that our dog promptly cornered. The results were predictable. He ran to my wife to alert her and rubbed on her, as well as our cars.
I had to laugh as my luck hasn’t been too great lately and posted the following on my facebook page:
My wife’s dog just got skunked. Fan f*cking tastic.
I always refer to Jameson as my wife’s dog – long running joke.
Anyways, I was reminded instantly that we are friends with horse and rural property owners, as within minutes of my little joke facebook post, cures for our woes started to pile in. Here is the one that we used, and the one that worked pretty well:
1 Quart of Hydrogen Peroxide.. 1/4 cup of Baking Soda// 1 teaspoon of liquid Soap.. Sponge the solutin on the dogl let it sit for 5 minutes.. Rinse off with warm water.. It must be made Fresh for each INCIDENT..(Mixing these ingredients and storing them in a closed bottle will result in an explosion).. So get a couple bottles.. do one bath tonight and another in the morning.. That should help.. Good Luck
It worked as well as we could hope for. It eliminated about 95% of the stench from the dog, and we also used the solution on the surrounding area where the skunk let go.
This was an unexpected surprise and reminded me that a lot of people know a lot of things. In this particular case it was a very useful thing.
Cross posted at LITGM.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in7yLZJ7A6Y
Where I take my dog to be groomed they have a recipe too – if you want I can get that – your dog does look like a cartoon character!
I would be interesting to see their recipe – ours worked pretty well all things considered. He acts like a cartoon character as well – the tasmanian devil, to be exact.
Tomato juice works fairly well. I’ll try your recipe next time.
John – it worked really well, all things considered. I held him and my wife scrubbed the dickens out of him. We are fortunate to have warm water available too, I hear that is also key.
Dan,
Glad to hear that you and yours have made the move. I think it may be excellent timing on your part.
One thing to watch for about your dog since this was the first encounter with skunks. Did he seem abashed or upset at being skunked? Some dogs either don’t mind being sprayed or actually like it. If it happens again, you may have one of those. I had one of those once, year ago. However my dog [which I took in as a stray] also turned out to be incredibly stupid and neglectful of her pups. In any case, if Jameson turns out to not be averse to skunks, you have two choices; put up with it or get rid of the dog. Since the latter is not acceptable, I’m sure; you have to be really careful about letting him out at night.
Another skunk tip. Skunks do not like mothballs. We have a small woods next to the side yard, and a mama skunk denned up with her babies under some old pallets. Did not want them that close. Threw some mothballs into the mouth of the den when mama was gone. The next day, she had pushed them out of the den. So I threw in a handful of the flaked version, since she could not push them out as easily. Later, I saw her leading her litter away for good, so I broke up the den and had no further problems.
My former partner once bragged about how he had caught skunks and deodorized them to sell as pets. He had supported himself as a medical student doing this, allegedly. One night, after a few beers, he offered to demonstrate. I wasn’t there that night fortunately. The other guys made him ride home on the bumper of the car.
I was also going to suggest tomato juice.
Thanks for that tip on the moth balls SB.
Jameson didn’t seem to mind being skunked, but he didn’t seem to think it was fun either. It was hard to tell.
He is hard wired to track/play with/destroy pretty much anything that moves or acts like anything not in the normal sphere of his influence. Example, the barn cats and chickens he leaves alone, but if a squirrel runs by it is going to get accosted in some form – and I have seen him turn a fox inside out in short order. That was an interesting mess I had to clean up. But this we like.
MK – on a trip to the Dells this past summer we went to an animal wildlife part that had a de-scented skunk that we were able to pet. It was pretty nice and not “skunk stinky”, but still had that wild musty smell that so many other animals have.
That is one beautiful dog! I see the Bouvier in him. A friend of mine has a couple of Bouvier’s. Woe to any outsider who crosses the property line. But if you have been invited in, then those dogs are your best friends.
I had a cat that got skunked once. Tomato juice did the trick. I sat in the tub with the cat; my little sister poured.
You have to love a bathing solultion that turns explosive if bottled.
@Dan – according to my friends at the dog grooming place they use 2 products to get rid of skunk oder on dogs.
1. Top Performance Skunk Shampoo (I asked Tina would they sell if they called it “Middle Range Performance?)
2. Nature’s Miracle Skunk Oder Remover
We have had no luck whatsoever with tomato juice. Because of the solid liver color of our shorthairs, the peroxide/soda/detergent solution is not advised, it bleaches out the coat to some awful appearance. There are commercial skunk products we always keep on hand: Skunk-Off and Nature’s Miracle Skunk Remover.
We notice the best results with Skunk-Off, but warm water and nearly IMMEDIATE application is key to achieving the best outcome. Unfortunately, the skunk musk always seems to land very close to lips and eyes, and those are the toughest places to treat with any solutions.
We found a big bottle of Skunk-Off at a good price with a simple online search, and always have some on hand. Our dogs’ strong predator instincts overrule any caution they may have accumulated from past skunkings.
“Our dogs’ strong predator instincts overrule any caution they may have accumulated from past skunkings.” Jameson is exactly the same way. His terrier portion is simply hard wired into him and it cannot be turned off when he sees something moving.