Tales of Interest

I have smelled skunks before.  Driving down the road and seeing road kill of a skunk and then you drive by and the smell hits you and gets into your car etc…  I think everyone knows what that smells like.

Saturday morning around 6 AM my wife wakes me up and says that our Golden Lab / German Shepard mix jumped the fence in the back yard.  The dogs wake us up wanting out to do their business every morning.  Sam is less then a year old and her name is Samantha (Sammy) for short.  Luckily the other yard was also fenced in so she was trapped in our neighbors back yard.  I went in our back yard to keep her next to our fence while my wife drove over to the other street to get Sammy.  I was right there with her and didn’t notice any smells.  My wife got in the other back yard and got Samantha and drove back home.  When she pulled in the drive, she tells me that Sammy had been sprayed by a skunk.  Being an older puppy that didn’t surprise me as she probably didn’t know that this could happen.  I am thinking great, just great how the hell do we get the smell off of her now?

We have an enclosed front porch so when my wife brought Sammy up and closed the front gate, the smell hit me.  She must have had a direct hit on her from that skunk.  There is no way I can describe the smell, I’ll try but your probably thinking you know what a skunk smells like.  Let me tell you, you do not.  Being that close to an animaly that has just been sprayed with a direct hit on the face is the worst smell that has hever came into contact with my nostrils.  My wife and I immediately went inside the house and left Sammy on the front porch.  I made it inside and I just closed the door when I started gagging.  I gagged 3 to 4 times before getting my reflexes under control.

Again, if you have ever driven by a skunk road kill, your only getting about 10 to 20 percent of the full experience.  It smelled so strong that you could actually smell (at least what it smelled like to me) some type of chemical mixture that was so potent, that my eyes were literally burning and watering (not from breathing it in but just from the normal air that came into contact with my eyes).  My nostrils were on fire not to mention the immediate gagging of almost throwing up.  I don’t know how else to describe the smell.  It did not smell like road kill skunk at all.  The hint of road kill skunk was there sure but being that close it was more of a violent sharp stinging chemical smell.  It felt like it could literally kill you if you inhaled to much of it.

Poor Samantha was drooling really bad and her eyes were watering extremely.  Thats one hell of a way to wake up on a Saturday morning.  We started researching on what the best course of action would be to remove the smell.  What we found and used was almost to good to be true.  It worked so good that Sammy only needed one bath in this concoction to remove the smell.  She got hit in the face and right leg/paw.  Below is what we found and used.  I highly recommend this if you need to remove the violent smell of skunk.

This solution was supposedly invented by Paul Krebaum, an Illinois chemist:

• 1 quart of hydrogen peroxide.
• 1/2 cup of baking soda.
• 1 teaspoon of liquid dish soap.

Combine the ingredients at the time of use. This solution works to remove skunk odor because of a chemical reaction initiated immediately upon combining the ingredients. If it sits for too long, it will become ineffective.

Apply the mixture to the affected areas, let it set for about five minutes and rinse. If you need to repeat the process, you must create a new solution, as the chemical reaction quickly expires. Avoid getting it into your pet’s eyes, nose and mouth.

Dealing with a dog that has been skunked is a miserable experience. No matter how horrible the skunk odor that emanates from your dog, keep in mind that he/she was only fulfilling an instinctual curiosity. Your dog is probably suffering from this encounter more than you are; being sprayed by a skunk, especially in the eyes, is very painful, not to mention that a dog’s sense of smell is much keener then that of humans.

This may also lighten your animals coat but it is better then the obvious.

We also got some eye drops for the puppy because this mixture does harm your animal so make sure you use soothing eye drops on your dog after its bath.  That alone made the difference from a scared puppy to a happy one.  This mixture worked so well that we didn’t have to repeat the wash.

Our neighbors dog across the street got hit two years ago and used the tomato juice recipe.  It didn’t work very well according to them – FYI.  Take it from me, this mixture listed above is the miracle cure for removing skunk odor from your animals.

-Dan