Thursday

Little Stinker

The warmer weather, not only means the Sun shining, flowers blooming, backyard BBQ’s, Camping, Hiking, early morning walks and more, but it can mean for a very stinky situation for your pet and well you!

I’m not talking about your dog’s corn chip smelling feet (you know they do! Lol) and no I’m not talking how our Pug mix, lovingly jumps on your lap for love and as he’s departing, leaves a silent, yet violent stinky puff with you and then looks back at you like “What??” I’m talking about Skunking; you know your beloved furbie getting perfumed by that cute furry friend of Pepe!


If you like us and live in a wooded area, in a rural area or just close to wildlife or maybe you’re out camping, hiking and such, it’s going to happen at some point and Yes it can happen in late Winter or early Spring, however they are more active this time of year.

Now, I don’t leave any food outside, our pets are in at night, our garbage is secure outside, yet it still happened! Now I grew up spending my Summers on a farm, so I wasn’t shocked, nor was I freaking out, because well, Stink happens, (sorry I just had too! Lol)

Now from what I have been told by different vets, for most pets other than the smell it’s fairly harmless, however you should still contact your veterinarian if it happens.

1) Your pet may require a Rabies booster even already vaccinated pets if there is a possibility of your pet has been bit or injured.

2) Being sprayed can cause ulcerations to the eye and mouth area if your pet was sprayed in the face, plus can cause temporary blindness.

3) Some pets become anemic after being sprayed which can be fatal to your pet.

4) Spraying can cause some animals to have seizures, especially if your pet has had seizures in the past.

Now, sometimes your pet getting sprayed can happen in the wee hours or over a weekend or holiday and well anytime, so you may not be able to contact your vet until next business day, if there is a serious issue with your pet contact your local emergency vet for advice and they can advise you if something is an emergency or not.

Ok, so when two of our dogs got sprayed while out for an early morning piddle, I of course was on my own, since hubby was TDY. I had to run out in the yard at 1:30 am and well, defuse the situation, why you ask?

1) Well the Skunk wouldn’t leave the yard, not even when I turned on the hose and sprayed it, the bugger wanted to stay and keep spraying!!

2) Our Newfie mix kept growling it and got sprayed, lovely, did I mention it was late winter when this happened and 28 degrees out?? Lol

3) Our Aussie, who is our Newfie’s bff and would probably give her life to protect him even though he is twice her size, ran over started growling and barking before I could stop her so of course she got sprayed, not once but twice in the freaking face, neck area, damn those stinkers re-load quick!

Well, on the second spraying I got sprayed a bit since I was down wind, because I had ran out with a broom to try and separate the skunk from our Aussie since she was on the ground and starting to have seizures, because she got it bad! Oh, did I mention these buggers can spray like 10 feet away!!

Finally, the stinker ran off after it met with this now a sleep deprived protective doggie mom, armed with a hose and broom which I was using to shoo it away with or maybe it figured it caused enough mayhem from 1:30 am to 2:15 am maybe it’s time to go or maybe it just needed to go off somewhere and re-load! I’ll never know, but I’d like to think it knew it wasn’t a match for this doggie mom lol Anyway…. Here are some tips that have helped me over the years with this issue.

Now, remain calm, there isn’t a whole lot you can do, it’s kind of one of those things that happen and as bad as it may seem at the time you got this!

Act as soon as possible to start removing the “stink”! Skunk spray is kind of oily and from what I’ve been told it is even stronger than Pepper Spray!!

If it is at all possible keep these things handy in case, you need them to help de-skunk your pet.


1)Rubber gloves, I used dish gloves, because I had an extra pair on hand, but you could use latex also.

2)Change into old clothes and have old towels that you can throw away, because there is NO way you’ll want to keep them after your finished!

3)Hydrogen Peroxide 3 %

4)Baking soda (I swear is it me of is this good for nearly anything?)

5)Original formula Dawn dish soap (because it helps to breakdown the oil in skunk spray and this is the formula they use on animals during oil spill rescues)

6)Dog or Puppy shampoo, I use an Oatmeal natural formula

7)Sterile eye wash, you don’t have to get brand name just ask the pharmacist or your vet

8)Large plastic bowl, container or a cleaning bucket

If you can get help with all this, it would be awesome, if not you can do it!

First, try and examine your pet for any bites or wounds, those need to be reported to your vet, since your pet may require a Rabies booster.

I mixed a solution of:

½ cup of Baking Soda

about 1 oz. of the Peroxide

2-3 capfuls or tablespoons of the Dawn dish soap

Be sure not to get this mixture in your pet’s mouth or eyes!! Only use the eye wash on their eyes.

Now I had lightly rinsed my dog off first so I would be able to lather this mixture in their fur, since both of these dogs have heavy coats. What I did was work into a lather on their coats, I let it sit for about 5 mins, rinsed all the solution out and repeated with the solution than I finished with the Puppy shampoo, rinsed then towel dried.

Now for one of the dogs this pretty much worked, but for our Aussie, she still smelled pretty bad on day 2 even. So I found:

Natures Miracle Skunk Odor Remover which did the trick!



There are a few items on the market that can assist with removing, more like lessoning the smell for fabrics, like carpet, sure they work alright, but honestly they can only do so much, but they do really help, in fact it saved me from throwing out a rug and a couple of dog beds, one of the ones I liked the best was:



Now, our yard is fully fenced, however there are some small gaps along the bottom on the Greenbelt side, so a product I found that has worked really well for us was to deter these critters is:



Hopefully you found this post helpful and I truly hope you’ll Never need it!

Thank you for stopping by and have a great evening,
Missy

**Though this post is Not sponsored, it does contain affiliate links and if you make a purchase through these links I could receive a small amount from the company the link belongs to.