Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Oh, the smell! The smell!

Ahhh, country living. We have the fox, hawks, coyotes, 'coons, muskrats (a family recently took up residence in our pond), owls, 'possum, vultures, quail, deer, blue heron, pheasant, turkey, rabbits, geese, ducks, etc. etc.

And, we also have skunk. Well, one less skunk, any way.

It's inevitable. When you live in the boonies your dogs WILL find the skunks. And they WILL get skunked. More than once. Our dogs have managed to get skunked several times over the past few months, but last night...oh, last night was the WORST.

Not only did my crazy dog Akasha manage to get skunked and get a faceful, mouthful, bodyful of the foul, oily stink, she killed the thing. Of course, she was SO proud of herself for ridding us of the vermin she decided to bring her odiferous present home. She left it at the back door where the smell has since permeated the house. Do you have any idea how hard it is to rid a house of skunk stink? I really don't mind the mice and baby bunnies our cat Osiris leaves on the deck by the back door that much. Sure, the gutted, headless critters are gross, especially when the entrails freeze to the deck, but at least they don't reek.

We mixed up a bucket of peroxide, baking soda and dish soap and washed and washed and washed and rinsed with white vinegar. She hated every minute of it. While she does smell better, a faint hint of the odor lingers, especially on her collar. I spritzed her with some of my vanilla bean body spray hoping to cover to last bit of smelliness and now she smells like the skunk ate a vanilla bean before it sprayed her.

I don't usually mind skunk smell too much. We can smell the skunk most frequently in the spring when they are moving around the woods and hooking up. It is a very faint smell and not entirely unpleasant. But when that stuff is up close and personal it burns the nose hairs and stings the eyes. Now I feel like my clothes smell like skunk. It's like the stuff winnowed it's way up into my nasal cavity and just decided to hang out up there for awhile. How pleasant.

Unfortunately, the stench wasn't a very effective deterrent for Akasha. And I seriously doubt she learned her lesson about the striped "cats." She's not that bright, I'm sorry to admit.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Jen.When our cat got spayed we used the old tomato juice trick. It does work. The only thing,when hte cat got wet, by licking herselfor what ever the smell would show up.She did like to sleep at the foot of the bed.Mmmmm.thats life in the back woods. UNCLE DAVID

Anonymous said...

You aren't supposed to use vanilla perfume. You're supposed to use vanilla VODKA. And it helps to shave all of her hair off.
Good luck!

Anonymous said...

a few years ago Dolly got sprayed by a skunk then immediately jumped in the van. don't know how i didn't puke!!! i didn't drive that van for a few weeks, it sat with the doors wide open, airing out! good luck.

Nancy R said...

Oh no! At least when I hit a skunk with the van back in March I could leave it parked outside!

Joeprah said...

Well that just...stinks! Bah, I can't believe I typed that. Yuk Yuk!

Sona said...

Ammonia gets the stink out. But it stinks too.