Skunk vs. Dog (a personal, non-political anecdote)

Last night our dog decided to get drenched in skunk spray.  My eyes are still watering, and I'm pretty sure they did as I slept last night too.  As an FYI, apparently tomato juice is not the best solution for dogs.  Google was helpful in our discovering of that fact (more on that later).  I have to admit, the panic in our house at the awful odor was pretty funny, even in the midst of it.

Not our dog but a remarkable lookalike.

The dog upon coming inside when I called him (there's a first for everything) decided the best thing to do would be to rub his face all over the carpet that we had just steam cleaned on Saturday.  My wife grabbed him as quickly as she could and headed to the bathtub.  I headed for the tomato juice and my son started opening windows, including ones in the area we think the skunk was at. Luckily the skunk was likely long gone by that point.

When my son was done opening the windows, that's when he noticed me pouring tomato juice into a bowl and stopped me. He told me what he had learned from my dad when the same thing had happened to his dog while my son was visiting a few summers ago. He quickly looked up the solution on his phone because he remembered a peroxide/dish-soap/baking soda solution. (a quick search confirmed it).  It turns out that mix works very well at getting the dog scent free.  While we were bathing the dog, I told my son to work on the carpet where the dog had rubbed his face.  

Our dog is a papillon and has long hair.  They are a small breed and look like drowned rats when they are bathed.  A picture of that would definitely cause you a chuckle, unfortunately we were too busy to snap a picture.  

It was cold enough here last night for frost, but we had to keep the windows open for a while.  I don't know why the house filled up with the scent so strongly, but it did.  The smell is gone from dog and the carpet, but it just seemed to float in the air overnight and I think lingered this morning as well. I can't tell today at work if I smell like skunk or it is just in my own nostrils.  My co-workers said they can't smell it, but they are nice people and could just be trying to spare my feelings.  That's the Canadian thing to do.

Luckily our little guy did not get sprayed in the eyes, but he's not the brightest bulb so I doubt he'll be taking away any insights from his back yard encounter.  I on the other hand have learned to check the yard before letting the dog out at night.  It hasn't been a problem in the past, but that doesn't matter now.  Live and learn.

In any case, my blogging will be a little slower than normal today and tomorrow as a short term result.  I'm itching to write a bunch of stuff but I haven't had the time and this skunk incident has done nothing to help the amount of time I have available.