Our friends rescue dog from california got skunked last night. First time in the year that they’ve had him. Full throated adult skunk sprayed point blank range right into the barking dogs mouth. Yuck! It smelled so strong from the street, like a mound of burning plastic. Just awful. Luckily we had just gone through this recently so we had supplies on hand, and an action plan. Hydrogen peroxide and baking soda for a fizzy reactive slurry, and Nature’s Miracle skunk off soap to round off the edges, and clean any hard surfaces that might get touched.
I said to put the dog on a leash so he won’t run into the house. Put an old towel over the dog. Carry him into an unused secondary tub/shower so that nothing gets touched (floors, carpets, dry wall, couches etc…) that will pick up and hold the stink. Place pet directly into the shower. Rinse them down completely. Add 250ml baking soda to copious amounts of hydrogen peroxide until it fizzes. Slather onto affected parts of the dog. Reapply/wash, reapply/wash. Use every ounce of slurry, and do everything except the eyes, mouth, and inner ears. Then move on to the gentler Nature’s Miracle shampoos and cleaning sprays to wash the dog some more, and spot clean any places the as of yet unclean dog had come into contact with. Tub, walls, tile on the bathroom floor etc… then wash the towel with the skunk off shampoo rubbed in real good immediately after all that bathing. Should – hopefully be good enough to sleep / exist indoors without irritating your eyes, nose, lungs with that burning plastic biological stink from the skunk. It’s about 90 minutes worth of concerted effort, but it pays off.
We were happy to help. It happened late in the evening to us too, but I had to send my wife out to criss cross town looking for what we needed. I didn’t have a friend to call to supply drop us everything we would need. Or give us a battle plan that would eliminate secondary contamination from direct contact by the dog. If I recall I was so put out by the spraying I hopped into the shower to start cleaning my dog and I still had my phone in my pocket. It spent the night in a bowl of instant rice, and was luckily serviceable by the following morning. Since we didn’t have supplies on hand, and I had to do something I washed the dog with head and shoulders ten times while I waited for the real chemicals to arrive. It was stressful.
But now it is Saturday, and the first PA Day passed without incident (for us anyway). We walked the dog at the farm. Had lunch & a swim at grandmas. Walked the dog again. Watched Inside Out 2. Walked the dog once more. My wife came home and the school day was done, so we went to dinner and another swim. I took down one old swing, and disassembled the slack line out front. Soon I’ll have to take down the second platform swing, the Noma lights, garden decorations, hose, and patio furniture, and gear up for winter time & snow. I’m glad I cut the grass the other day. The growing season is a little stunted this September. Usually now is the time the lawn takes off again after a dry June-August. Not so this year. Wettest summer ever for amount of precipitation, intermingled with really dry periods. Lawn never died or stopped growing. I even made special trips back here just to cut the grass before it was a foot tall! Crazy town. Now it’s acting like a lawn should in mid June.
I had thought I might need to rake leaves, but the mulcher on my new lawn mower made short work of them all. I don’t see that as an actual option once more than 5-10% of the leaves come down. It’s fine for a modest sprinkling of leaves, but not when those tree tops dump every last leaf. Have a great pre Markham Fair weekend. It’s photography drop off day today, so get your entries mounted, labeled, and dropped off to the fair grounds!
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