Troutbirder II

Troutbirder II
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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

We Got Skunked

We got skunked....literally that is. It all started innocently enough last week. The Baron & I decided to do a serious hike. We had been cooped up by cold and rainy weather for far to long. The sun had peeked through that morning and off we went.



These say that dogs often reflect their masters. Well Baron and I both like to explore. He follows me through the woods and pastures. Sometimes I follow him because he has the nose and finds interesting things. That proved to be a bad plan on this day.
Of course, he loves romping in the water. That usually is pretty safe, except when he runs up to me and does that shaking thing.
Heading into the woods might turn up some deer or turkeys. Chasing turkeys or squirrels is ok but running after deer is a no no.


We were heading across a grassy field where Baron got his nose down and began tracking seriously. Then the "pronking" started. For those unfamiliar with the term, African antelopes are most famous for the technique. All my hunting dogs did this in the field, especially when they were trying to spot a pheasant in the tall grass. Apparently Baron, the GSD, also had a use for it. I figured he was on the trail of a mouse or something akin. Wrong!!!

It was ugly. I never saw the stripped pussy cat in the tall grass, but when Baron came rushing back to me and then rolled over and over on the ground, I knew what he had found. Phew!!!

We trudged back to the truck and loaded him up. A minor plus was, that for the first time, I wasn't totally sorry that a few years back a virus had taken away some of my sense of smell. Later, Mrs T pointed out that besides the dog, the truck, the garage, the kennel, me and my clothes all reeked. I barely escaped being banished from the house. What to do? Actually I already knew from a previous experience with Max (my first lab hunting dog) that the tomato juice remedy was highly ineffective. Calling ahead on my cell phone and warning my spouse of our immenent arrival, she did an internet search for a cure. Here it is -

1 Qt 3% hydrogen peroxide 1/4 cup baking soda 1 tsp. liquid soap

All you need to do is wet down the dog with a hose, mix the ingredients together in a container, and then slowly pour the mixture over the dog while rubbing it into the fur.

After the dog has been bathed in this solution rinse it down with the hose and the dog will be odor free.

My dog weighed 100 lbs so I doubled the amounts shown above, but if you have a small to medium size animal, the recipe listed should do just fine.

Although the ingredients are not dangerous, care should obviously be taken to keep the solution out of your dog's eyes, ears and mouth. Credit for this remedy goes to chemist, Paul Krebaum, of Molex Inc. in Lisle, Illinois. The above listed ingredients were published in the August 1995 issue of Popluar Science.

It worked great. Here's hoping you don't have to try it!

17 comments:

  1. Oh, yuck! I had one of my Brittanies take on a skunk in the sugar beet field in front of our house. The fight caused a forty foot in diameter portion of the sugar beets to be topped. Real ugly. The dog won. Every bone in the skunk's body seemed to be broken, but he lost the war. We used a couple gallons of tomato juice. You are right about its ineffectiveness. A few weeks later my Brittany swam from shore of a mountain lake to join me on a log raft. Getting wet activated the smell again and I was stuck on the raft with him. No amount of persuasion was going to convince him that he should leave. Glad to know that there is an effective remedy. Thanks for the cure and the story. Hope Baron learned a lesson. Don't be on it.

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  2. Poor Baron! My dog only "chomped" on the skunk, so the odor was confined to her head, but still very stinky! Sure seems like there are more skunks around than usual this year, doesn't it?

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  3. Poor Baron, and poor you, and poor Mrs. Troutbirder. I knew from the heading this wasn't going to end well.

    We have that recipe and keep all the ingredients in a pail in the dogs room. We know we will need it sooner or later.

    It's important that the liquid soap NOT be one of the grease-cutting ones like Dawn. Should be Ivory or other similar mild soap.

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  4. Hey! Thanks for sharing that skunk de-bunk solution :-D never know when it may come in handy!

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  5. One time, our sleeping dog, who was just outside the screen door, inside door open, got skunked in the middle of the night. I'm sure the spray came right into the house, as we were all skunked and everybody else knew it for a week.

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  6. Sooner or later it's happened to every dog I've had. It only happens once;) Aggie has already had her encounter so I won't have to worry about it until I get a new pup.
    Marnie

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  7. Well, it happens. And, hopefully, only once per dog. When RolyTheDog got on the wrong end of a skunk, we found some enzyme stuff that worked wonders. She took a big shot up her nose, though, and her sinuses ran like a faucet for about a month.

    Here's to Baron avoiding future encounters with skunks, or with porcupines or rattlers for that matter. It's a dog's life.

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  8. Oh, poor you!!!
    I had a very stupid dog that got it TWICE within two days. She was a slow learner........

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  9. Poor Baron! (and poor you) Glad the remedy worked!

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  10. Oh, there's nothing quite so offensive and pungent as that Skunk smell. How did the remedy work out by the way?

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  11. Kia ora TB,
    As a kid I spent a lot of time in summer at my uncle's place in Luck, Wisconsin. Hunting, fishing, playing, hiking. He had a wonderful German Shepard named Chris who emulated The Baron's tale to a t. My uncle and I loaded him into the boat while I scrubbed him down with tomato juice. My uncle drove across the lake, and told Chris to jump out, then we went back to his dock and waited for Chris to swim back. He was a powerful swimmer. He still smelled a bit though!
    Cheers,
    Robb

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  12. Uffda, I hate it when that happens. Poor Baron, poor you and poor Mrs.
    I picked up one of my dogs that had been skunked years ago..I smelled like skunk until my fingernails grew out.
    That solution works good for a dog that rolls in fish gutts too:)

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  13. Oh No! Poor Baron, poor you. We've had a bit of skunk problem earlier this fall but luckily no close encounters. This is really, really helpful to know what to do. Thank you!

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  14. thanks for the recipe...my mom just recently found a skunk in her backyard...so this will be good to know if her dog gets sprayed.

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  15. Oh no! Sorry to read about the unfortunate skunking incident. Boy, does this post bring back some bad memories!!

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