Dog meets skunk

[leslieann]

I got up earlier than usual this morning, ready for Monday, and took dog for his morning constitutional. He was wandering around the soccer field and I thought he was playing with a milk carton but that carton had legs...and, OMG, a big fluffy white tail! So I called and called and started heading the other way (which brings the dog along every time). When he got to me, he started rubbing his face on the ground, over and over, rubbing his eyes in particular. So while the skunk clearly didn't spray him, he did get a faceful of something skunkily nasty.

I scrubbed his face with a warm water and vinegar solution and THOUGHT the smell was gone. It is pretty subtle, for skunk, but it is still there and that means also In My House. So....do I just live with this for a bit? Is there something I can do to eliminate the smell? At this point I am not even sure that there is a source point for it. I wonder if I am smelling skunk because I have BEEN smelling it...almost like a smell memory?

Suggestions? Thanks....

[fidgiegirl]

Oh!!! So sorry!!! Our dogs got into skunk growing up, and they got the tomato juice bath. Not sure if that's an old wives tale, though.

Maybe give it overnight?

[Bronxboy]

I scrubbed his face with a warm water and vinegar solution and THOUGHT the smell was gone. It is pretty subtle, for skunk, but it is still there and that means also In My House.

I recently picked up a morning newspaper in a plastic bag that had been sprayed or rubbed by a skunk. I washed my hands in straight vinegar and wiped down other surfaces with a strong solution. By the time I was done, both me and the dining room were a combination of vinegar and skunk that I couldn't really tell apart.

Vinegar should work as well as anything, but the skunk smell sticks to everything it touches. Wipe down surfaces, throw away or soak towels used to wash and dry the dog in vinegar solution, etc.

[goldensmom]

I have much experience with dog meets skunk. Over the years I've tried everything (seems like) and no home solution (tomato juice, vinegar, baking soda) works for my dogs. I have come across a product that works reasonable well but I cannot remember the name of it. It's a odor neutralizer that is not available locally anymore. I'm sure I'll remember it in the middle of the night and I will post it tomorrow. If you can get to the dog quick enough, while the skunk oil is still on the hair only and before it gets into the pores, there is hope that you can get the majority of the oil off otherwise it will get into the pores and linger for quite some time. I have a stack of dog only towels and launder them in detergent and bleach which removes the skunk smell from the towels.

We have a critter cage near the chicken house inside the barn. One day I walked into the barn behind a dog when I saw the cage door closed. I yelled and yelled and yelled at the dog to come but she was task oriented toward the skunk and try as I might I could not stop her. The skunk got her right in the face. I've been up a midnight bathing a skunk soaked dog and laundering the stinky towels. I have accumulated a lot of skunk stories over the years.

[Mrs-M]

Oh, no... The dirt rotten rascal.

[pony mom]

This: http://www.essortment.com/skunk-odor-remedy-23498.html

Follow the directions and make it up when you're going to use it.

[Float On]

I almost had a personal run-in with a skunk during a thunderstorm. Big crash of lightning and I see something running towards me, another crash of thunder and lightning and I look down and he looked up and all I could think was "God, I can't afford tomato juice". And then another crash of thunder and he was gone.

I've had one dog with a skunk run in and it wasn't pleasant at all. I did vinegar and then baking soda, rinse/repeat until I was out of both. It wasn't a direct hit, more like he ran through spray that was hanging in the air. I think I smelled it for 2 weeks but that could of just been in my mind.

[goldensmom]

Float On, it is not in your imagination. If the skunk spray gets through the hair and into the pores it can linger for months and becomes stronger if the dog gets wet. The name of the product we use is Deodorizing Pet Shampoo by Orville Pet Products. I try to keep 2 bottles on hand all the time. My husband and I reminisced last night about dog/skunk encounters and we remembered 14 incidents. We don't become alarmed anymore and have the treatment down to a routine. It's just 'oh, no not again'.

[leslieann]

Thanks, everyone, for the support, and thanks, too, goldensmom for the product info. He certainly does have some smell around his head which is likely the only place on this dog that surface moisture or oils could get to his skin. The scent is light but skunk sure is penetrating. I'll continue to work on him. And I don't think I realized that I am probably to blame for the odor in the house because I just pitched the dog towels in the basement after scrubbing his face, so I'll do the detergent and bleach thing on them this morning.

During our walk this morning, I was pretty vigilant. Also it was an hour later, so closer to dawn. I noticed that the dog didn't make any effort to go toward the place where he encountered the skunk yesterday. That tells me that he IS capable of learning.....maybe.

[Float On]

That tells me that he IS capable of learning.....maybe.

:)

I have to say that baby skunks are really, really cute. We've had a mama skunk bring her babies into our back yard to play on my little rock walls. They climb up and tumble over and occupy themselves while she roots around. I watch from inside and lock the dog in the front laundry room so he doesn't bark and make mama skunk spray. She has brought 3 different litters over the last few years.

[Charity]

This brought back memories of a royal skunking I dealt with. A friend of mine at the time had a St. Bernard and Newfoundland mix named Bruno. If you ran into this dog you'd swear you were looking at a bear. He was huge. He got skunked and his owner called me and asked what he should do. My DD who was 11 at the time googled it and one of the most effective things was to use Massengil Douche on the dog. He certainly wasn't going to go buy it so my DD and I went to the grocery store and bought all of it they had, which was around 8 boxes. I cannot begin to describe the looks we got in check out line. I finally said loudly "No. We aren't on a personal hygene kick. A very large dog got skunked."

By the time I got home he had brought the dog to my house for some inexplicable reason and he proceeded to pour tomato juice all over the dog in my back yard in the snow. For days it looked like someone butchered a cow in my back yard. Then the dog was too full of tomato juice to take home that way so he dragged the dog into my basement where we thoroughly douched the poor dog. I'm sure his male ego never recovered. And by the time we were done we were spattered with tomato juice and we all smelled really fresh.

[Float On]

Charity, that would make a good scene in a comedy movie! In real life, it sounds like something more out of a horror flick.

[gwendolyn]

That is hilarious, Charity! Almost beats my story: I was traveling with all belongings, and my huge dog, in a car, camping out at night. The dog got skunked right in front of the tent, I broke the zipper getting out, the campground washing machine died with our stinky wet clothes in it, the vehicle had a flat tire, (the spare tire was seized in place and wouldn't dislodge, the emergency spare-tire-in-a-can didn't work...:help:) We had to move on to the next destination, so we called a relative who recommended bleaching the dog as the only thing that works. This we did, feeling incredibly bad subjecting him to bleach, but he survived unscathed and we were able to then stand piling all in and moving on, stinky wet clothes in a trashbag. After the campground host took a bike pump to the tire, we coasted back to civilization and tire store. Great way to start a road trip.

Unfortunately, I don't think bleach will be a good idea around a dogs face, so not sure that advice can help this time.

Epilogue: A few thousand miles later we realized the spare tire was not mounted on the back anymore...

[Charity]

Gwendolyn, you have my story beat. Although I'm not sure these kinds of stories are anything to aspire too. They're hilarious in hindsight, but at the time ....not so much. Someday I'll have to tell you all about the menage et twa (I'm not even going to try that in spell check) that the same giant Bruno got into with my two girl dogs and how I ended up breaking it up.

[leslieann]

Great tales of dogs and skunks and their owners...Thanks for the laughs.

[Tweety]

One summer one of my little girls came back from a foray into the nearby cedar swamp with a bucket full of baby skunks. We didn't mean to keep them, of course, but they managed to stay around when I began feeding them table scraps. They were so cute to watch when they threatened each other butt-to-nose over the scraps, and pretty soon I could feed them out of my hand. But the neighbor's dog never learned that they could fire real ammo. He would come around the corner of the house at dinnertime and I would yell, "Pepper's here!" and the whole family would rush to shut all the windows. By the end of the summer they had grown and wandered off to live an adult life in the woods, but we have never forgotten the Summer of the Skunks.