Maggie Le Pew

[Crusty McPottydoodle]

So last night, feller was going to let the cat out when he saw a big ol' skunk in our back yard. No biggie.

A little while later Maggie the dog starts whining to go out.

I will point out that *I* would have leashed her up and taken her for a walk leaving via the front door.

Feller opens the back door and makes a bunch of noise to make sure the skunk was gone and lets Maggie out.

A couple of minutes later, I hear Maggie barking like crazy.

So I shout from the other room that I hope she is not barking at the skunk and feller replies that she probably is. I go and open the door to let her in and immediately make her go back out. The smell was almost enough to knock me out.

At this point I am livid. I head to the trusty intertoobs to find out the best way to deal with skunk. Most of them involve large quanitities of hydrogen peroxide. It is 9:30pm on a sunday and I don't have a small quantity, let alone a large quantity.

One post somewhere says to use toothpaste. Okay, I think. I have 2 unopened tubes. Another one says to bathe the dog with ground up oranges. Okay, I think. I have oranges and a food processor.

I have to be fair, feller did offer to deal with Maggie all on his own (and by rights, I should have let him), but out I went with him and 2 tubes of toothpaste and we emptied them on her and rubbed her down completely. We left her for about 10 minutes.

Then we brought her into the tub. I had ground up the oranges and added baking soda for good measure. Once in the tub, we rubbed her down with the oranges for a few minutes and then rinsed her off.

She smells just fine now. The house still smells (I think it is because I am still washing skunky clothes and towels). Needless to say, I will be keeping a large supply of toothpaste on hand.

It's a good thing it is a long weekend and so I have today to get rid of as much skunk smell as possible before I have kids tomorrow.

ARGH!

 

[ibpboo]

I had never heard of the toothpaste remedy. So glad it worked for you! Its amazing what you can learn on a chicken forum!!

 

[saddina]

The canned tomatos worked on my cockers, who I expected to have shaved... They got to keep the curls. Than again I often have a 6lb can of tomato for sauce making.

 

[wombat]

I've found that citrus works better than tomato juice. Just my experience. My first GSD was smart, but he had a life's ambition to exterminate skunks, and didn't care if he got sprayed in the process.

My best solution has been large quantities of lemon juice and dishwashing detergent. Work the lemon juice in first, add soap, lather heavily, rinse, repeat. I've generally had Dawn on hand, and that's worked well.

If you've got a big bottle of lemon juice around, that's going to work best. A lot faster than juicing fruit! It's the acid that does the work, so oranges or tomato juice will work too, but lemon juice is more effective. The lemony smell helping to mask any lingering odor is rather secondary.

You can also cut a lemon or orange in half and rub that on in between shampoo rounds.

 

[equine623]

Umm...something else works well too....



Douche.

Bathe once really well with Dawn to cut the grease, then sponge on a plain douche and DON'T rinse it off. Let it dry on. Also keep in mind that mucus membranes like nose/eye conjunctiva/mouth will still smell for weeks/months.

 

[19Dawn76]

We always use Dawn, baking soda and peroxide. Works REALLY well.