Skunked

We spent a few days at my Mom's house recently. We had a bunch of plans: the zoo, the boardwalk, Atlantic City. But, I'll save all of that stuff for another post.

My Mom told us that her and my Step-Dad recently found out that they have skunks in their backyard. They aren't actually living in the backyard, but they live just over the fence and they come over into their backyard at night.

My Mom did the research and found out that skunks kill insects and rodents, so it didn't seem like such a bad thing. But, we joked that my dog Amstel would get sprayed. He is so curious and since he isn't the smartest dog either, it just seemed like a given.

The first night we were there, we saw a skunk run across the backyard. They are cute little things! Luckily neither of my dogs noticed and we didn't have a problem . . . until the next night. Sure enough, Amstel caught a glimpse of a baby skunk and went running right after it. He just wouldn't let up and of course, he got sprayed.

You would think that we would be prepared for this scenario, given the fact that we sort of expected it to happen. But, nope, we had no idea what to do. My Step-Dad pulled out the hose and started spraying Amstel down. In fact, he got me, Nik and my Mom pretty wet too (not to mention the deck).

After a good hose down, Amstel still smelled like Skunk. So this time we got a bucket and soap to give him a bath. I scrubbed and scrubbed but only ended up with a stinky dog and smelly hands of my own.

Finally, I resorted to searching online (I probably should have done that first). Turns out there is special stuff you can buy at the pet store. Of course it was 10 or 11 at night at this point, so running to the pet store wasn't exactly an option. Thank goodness Amstel was sprayed by a baby though because the smell wasn't too unbearable. We decided to let him sleep in the house, in his crate, but he was confined to the laundry room. We would deal with the smell in the morning.

The next day I ran out and bought a big bottle of the Skunk Odor Remover. I scrubbed Amstel down with it, but still the smell did not go away. Several applications later although the smell was better, it still was not gone. My poor dog was not allowed back in the house until the smell was gone and we were all starting to feel really bad for him (he isn't use to being left outside). Although the smell was bearable, we didn't want him to rub it against the furniture. Something had to be done though, so we came up with this idea -




Poor boy got stuck wearing a pink shirt. It was the only thing my Mom could come up with that would fit him well and cover the sides of his neck (the smelly part). So, for almost a week now he has been running around in his little pink shirt and when I attempted to take it off of him yesterday, I realized that yes, he still smells. :-(