SKUNK ATTACK!!
Well, it was bound to happen sometime. This past weekend we were enjoying the outdoors at the Bjerke cabin. David, my Dad, and bother-in-law Josh were sighting in their guns for opening day....so the girls decided to go for a little walk. So, Meaghan, Maureen, Mom, Payton and I were walking along the creek with Mo and Josh's dog, Vegas, and Thor. Jake and the family dog, Moka, were left at the cabin on the injury list. The two dogs bounded across the creek after something, not unusual, when all of the sudden I saw Thor with his nose in a skunks butt chasing it down to the creek!! We screamed at the dogs to come, but it was too late! OH MY GOSH!! I've never smelt anything SO rank in my life! It's not the normal "dead-skunk-on-the-road" smell...not this is MUCH worse. The horrible thing was we had to follow them back to the cabin! Vegas was rubbing on anything he could find, pine needles, bushes, trees, etc... Thor on the other hand must have gotten it in the mouth because he was foaming profusely and he acted like he had peanutbutter on the top of his mouth. When we got back to the cabin we through every tomato based product into a big bowl - tomato sauce, catsup, diced tomatoes, - called the vet - they said to add vinegar...so that went in to. My mom and I then doned work clothes and rubber gloves and tried to rub down the dogs. Thor was the easiest...he is used to being bathed and handeled, but Vegas is still a puppy - and his master wasn't there - so he was having none of it! Thor was eating the diced tomatoes off of himself! For those of you who know Thor - you know what a wus he is when it comes to being cold....well his worst nightmare came true.... this walk took place around 6 pm, it started to get cold really fast... so he was wet and cold and smelly and there wasn't anyway we were letting him in the cabin. So he had to sleep in a shed with Vegas, heated of course, all night. It was probably 25 degrees out when we finally put them to bed. We had built a fire outside, but they wouldn't get near it. The next day they had to spend all day outside - again Thor froze his butt off. They rode home in the back of David's big orange truck. We looked up additional recipes on-line for skunk remedies and found one that included dish soap, hydrogenperoxide, and vinegar - as well as a vinegar rinse that you leave in. Thor was still a little skunky so we gave him an additional bath in the new stuff. Seems to have worked. I never want to have to do that again & can't imagine what it would have been like with Jake and his fur!! At least Thor's fur is short with no undercoat. Sorry we don't have any pictures, but we weren't really around a camera at the time!