No No, Don't Go Play With The Black And White 'Kitty'!

Can anyone guess what this title means? Well, our dog got "skunked" on Wednesday night. Yeah, she really did. I have grown up with dogs and never experienced this before this week.

Here's what happened: B2 and I got home about 6:30pm from her gymnastics lesson and dinner out with Hubby and B1. Hubby and B1 were at B1's pitching lesson when it happened. Anyway, we were coming into the house from the garage as the garage door was going down. I thought the door was down far enough that Shinza would not be able to get underneath it, but no, I was wrong. I let her into the garage, thinking I would then put her out back in the fenced-in yard, but she slid under the garage door. Once in awhile, she does get out and usually the routine is that she runs as fast as she can around our house, around the far back yard, around the neighbor's house, into our front yard, and into our garage. We then put her out back into our fenced-in yard. But this time, by the time she got back to the front of our house, the garage door still wasn't up and I guess she got impatient waiting for it, so she took off again. This time she didn't come back.

I knew she would probably prowl around the neighborhood (this too has happened only a few times) but eventually come back home. We stood on the front steps calling for her for a little while and then finally gave that up. Then after about 20 minutes, we drove the car around just our neighborhood looking for her. Nothing. So we came back home, left the garage door up, and about 10 minutes later, she was back in our garage. I went over and immediately opened the screen door, letting her into the house. She runs past me and I smell the very distinctive odor. She heads into the living room and I yell at her to get back into the garage (the garage door is now shut). My mind is racing wondering what the heck I'm going to do to take care of this problem!

So she's in the garage and I go get online to try to find some remedies. Meanwhile, the smell is coming through the door and smelling up the kitchen and rest of the house! So now I put her out back and it's raining. But I figured that she's been out in the rain for 30-45 minutes anyway so it doesn't really matter. I found 2 remedies online. One said to do a bath in tomato juice. The other was a recipe of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap. I decided to do both. It also said to check for bites or scratches from the skunk, in case of rabies. Also to check her eyes to make sure she didn't get sprayed directly in the eyes. She didn't have any scratches or bites and her eyes were not watering or red so I was happy about that. She is up-to-date on her shots anyway but you can never be too safe.

So I call Hubby and leave him a voice mail about the good news. I tell him that he needs to go by Wal-Mart on his way home and pick up the necessary supplies along with rubber gloves. Here's the best part: when searching online, it said of course not to get any of the tomato juice or other recipe in the dog's eyes, nose, or mouth. So I searched for a solution to clean the face area that was safer. It said to use a douche! Yeah, a douche. So Hubby has to also buy a douche at Wal-Mart. Lucky him. He has never had a problem buying personal supplies for me if necessary so I didn't think this would be a big deal, which it wasn't. He did say, however, that the sales lady looked at him kind of weird when he informed her that the douche was for his dog! :-) Well, we used all the remedies and the next day her coat smelled better but not her face (darn douche didn't work anyway!). I gave her another bath today and did another dose of the hydrogen peroxide recipe. This time I used a washcloth and washed her face as best I could, being careful not to get anything into her eyes, etc. She still doesn't smell 100% better. Her face is still skunky. So we have an appointment on Thursday to take her to a grooming salon and have her professionally bathed, ears cleaned out, and nails clipped. What an experience!