Late last night, Gordon steps out of the shower and opens the door. I am parked on the chair in the corner of the bathroom.
Gordon, big smile: Hey there. Were you waiting for me?
Me: Hmm. Can you walk into the bedroom, please?
Gordon, in a towel, walking to the bedroom: Sure. What am I… Why does it smell so bad in here? Dear Lord. Oh wow.
Sookie got sprayed by a skunk. We don’t know how her stupid butt managed to surprise a skunk. She is huge, she is slow, unless she is charging, and she’s barks like a fog horn. You’d think the skunk would see her coming a mile away and take off. Oh, it is awful. And I am, apparently, one of the small percentage of people who cannot handle it. I never knew this, but I literally couldn’t get close to that dog. It’s like rotten garlic and decomposed citrus rolled into one. Kid 1 couldn’t do it either.
We didn’t have any peroxide, and it was too late to buy it, so Sookie spent the night in the garage. Somehow I managed to pass out in the still noxious bedroom. I was exhausted. This morning Sookie still smells, so we will be doing the washing as soon as peroxide arrives.
Yes, I know about tomato juice, but it doesn’t work as well as peroxide and soda.
Oh the stench. The stench.
Update: it’s 12:27 pm. I am finally done deskunking. Peroxide and baking soda works, but it takes multiple applications. There is still a faint whiff of perfume de skunk, but we can deal. Cleaning the floor where she flopped yesterday really sucked.
Ehh, it has an earthy musk that is not altogether unpleasant.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/2d785a38-3a30-469e-b5ba-968b54a5cbbc
Oh God I’m so sorry, but you guys made me laugh with this.
Hope poor baby can smell nice again soon.
????????????
I’m so sorry for y’alls poor noses. May you win the battle of the stench this morning!
We don’t have skunks in Aus so I did a little googling because I was curious. From wikipedia;
“A skunk’s spray is powerful enough to ward off bears and other potential attackers.”
But not Sookies or Gordon’s apparently. Haa.
Or me, lmao. I love the smell of skunk. ????♀️????♀️????♀️
Been there at least once a year????. I sympathize…truly!
My daughter thinks they smell faintly of burnt toast.
I am happy to be able to tell her that she is not the only one 🙂
She became a wildlife conflict specialist with the local wildlife rescue center.
I literally went to Walmart a few months back and walked in and went….”I wonder if someone had been smoking pot, or got hit by a skunk….you can never know in Montana” LOL
Oh. So glad to read this – around here it is pot but I think it really smells like skunk – just a little greener. Awful!
99.9% of the time in NYC it is pot. However, a feral cat colony that I helped out with – TNR – also had an old skunk. It would hang back about 10 feet and then come and eat some food after I moved away. Never had a problem with Skunky Skunk. ????
When we lived in Idaho we had a family of skunks under our barn but they never sprayed us or our dog. Lucky us
I grew up in Montana so I know what you mean. One night I got up to let our miniature poodle out. A few minutes later, he scratched at the door to come back in. When I opened it, he whizzed in like his tail was on fire. Blasted beast dashed into the bedroom, hopped on the bed and rolled on all the bedding. We were up the rest of the night washing the dog and doing laundry.
I’m one of those strange people that finds it pleasant — from a distance. Up close, it’s overwhelming, but I don’t find it awful. Maybe because as I was growing up, the faint smell of skunk on the breeze was one of the first signs of spring.
But since there are other odors that consistently make me barf, I feel for you.
Same here! Skunks mean spring!
Hahahahaha! I shared a room with my sister growing up and one night she came in after being out late with friends and was sprayed by a skunk that was hiding in the bushes by our front door. She thought she would just come sleep in the room with me. The stench woke me up out of a deep sleep. I told her to go sleep in the garage. She cried.
Growing up in Northern California, our dog got skunked often. We found apple cider vinegar worked pretty well.
Ok, I was a Vet Tech for nine years, and I don’t like sharing my recipes but I love you guys to will do. First of all let her soak covered in tomato juice for 10 min.
Skunk Descenting Solution
Quart Hydrogen Peroxide
Table spoon Blue Dawn Dish Soap(must be blue Dawn, no substitutes)
1/4 Cup Baking soda
1 gal water
Mix altogether and lather up for 5 minutes, then wash with warm water.
Hope this helps, the skunk smell is interesting. Also hopefully the dog has been through a series of Rabies shots, otherwise a young dog should have a booster within 24 hours; because some stuff you don’t mess with. I have loads of horror stories that I won’t share unless you ask.
I also was going to say to add dish soap to the baking soda and peroxide. Maybe it helps release the oils holding the smells. We were told this recipe where our lab thought rolling in dead deer was fun. ????
We Keep what we call our Skunk Kit with all these ingredients ready to go after our dog was sprayed 2 times in 3 nights! It’s a life saver! Or make that a Nose saver!
Yep, this is the one!!! Also works well on fox urine, eagle poo (If your dog has a magical way of rolling in all things foul.) and that sour milk/rotten wet towel smell if you have a water obsessed dog that reeks after a few days of never drying out. You do need to let it sit for that 10 minutes. It can add some surprisingly lovely highlights that have people asking if you take you dog in to a specialty groomer that does dye jobs. I have multiple costco sized bottles of peroxide on hand just for this reason year round.
You will want to burn her collar. Dad’s deer hound partied with a skunk. 20 years later the dog’s collar could STILL make my Dad throw up from the smell.
LOL…
I’m so sorry.
LMAO …. *breath*
hahahaha my second love skunk scratch and sniff!
We had a cat that did the same thing. He came in through the cat door and went to sleep on my parents bed in the middle of the night. My brother and I were woken up at 4am and the whole family searched the house looking for the burning rubber /plastic. 45 min after the cat left the house we realized what the smell was!!!!
Was coming home from work and had a suicidal skunk leap in front of my car. Needless to say I swerved to miss him and blasted thing hari-kari’d Again. In hindsight, it must have been bio ic????.
Trying to not breathe thru nose or mouth was futile. And as I’m experiencing this, Rev. Joel Olsten ‘s sermon about not letting others steal your happiness was running thru my head.
As I was thinking what joy could come from this….had a random thought that made me smile.
And I sent a text to youngest brother to see what would get smell off car
Maybe you can use the vet’s skunk solution above?
We used feminine wash on our poor skunked dog; it worked marvelously! Just keep it away from eyes, nose and mouth! (Not sure what that says about intimate feminine hygiene…)
Not to scare you, but I’m related to a dog who seeks out and enjoys an occasional spritzing of skunk. Some dogs roll in rotten fish. I guess my nephew dog is an overachiever.
Nature’s miracle https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NJJKCM?tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1 Their products have enzymes that break down the source of whatever noxious odor you have. Also made for dog and cat urine, etc. I keep a gallon on hand.
Yeah, my mom and I both find the smell kind of appealing from sufficient distance (not up close!). Must be genetic.
Next time use Nature’s Miracle de skunking shampoo. Has to do it a few weeks ago for mine… she got it right in the face ugh. But the shampoo worked pretty well only had to wash her twice with it and it has a lavender scent to it.
Vinegar and water dilution, about 1:4, works also. Caution around the eyes. For future reference.
Nope, tomato juice does nothing. Peroxide and Dawn dish washing liquid I think it was worked the best. I’m so sorry. They must have both surprised each other. I hope it gets better soon. That smell and it gets into EVERYTHING. oiy
I was going to say the same thing. My big goofy Weimaraner got sprayed once and went back in for round two immediately. So I did dawn, peroxide and baking soda. It didn’t completely get rid of the smell but you couldn’t smell her unless you were close enough to pet. Good luck!
I completely agree with the statement that tomato juice does nothing. Our dog Circe loved tormenting the skunks (I lived in Colorado mountains at that time). I tried tomato juice many many times and it didn’t do anything.
In answer to the How? question; skunks simply recognize no threat to themselves and acknowledge no higher authority. They know they are carrying the heaviest of weaponry, and everything from elephant to shrew will move out of their way, if they know what is good for them.
There’s reports, perhaps apocryphal, of skunks being hit in the road because they stood their ground and sprayed the onrushing vehicle.
Your small, furry, non-skunk-savvy tank probably expected the skunk to behave like any self-respecting squirrel or rabbit and turn tail and flee before her righteous rath. Unfortunately, a skunks’ idea of turning tail is entirely different ????!
The honey badger is found is Africa, SE Asia and India. It is also black with a white strap but the tail is not cute and puffy. The smell from the anal pouch is suffocating and can be used to “calm” i.e. makes bees pass out which helps when the raid beehives. They will attack much larger animals, up to and including hyenas, lions, horses and Cape buffaloes. I’m thinking skunks on steroids.
Semi random fact: honey badgers are so bad@$$ that cheetah cubs look like them.
Skunks are actually pretty slow and they have poor eyesight, so fleeing isn’t their best skill. They’re also not very good at climbing. They generally prefer to avoid confrontation, but it’s entirely possible that a bulldog was able to corner one. I don’t know how easily surprised they are, but they’ll usually give a warning before spraying — stamped feet, turn and lift the tail and wait; unfortunately, dogs and speeding cars don’t heed the warning.
Supposedly, however, skunks can be distracted from almost anything by a piece of good Brie cheese. I haven’t had the opportunity to try it out myself.
Sorry for you… but thankful for the laughter
So sorry for the stench!
Oh, there’s nothing worse than trying to get skunk stink off. Good luck!!!
Only thing worse than caring for a dog that tangled with a skunk is caring for a dog that went after a porcupine.
Messengil Douche used to work back in my dog owning days
This. My dad’s bird dog would get sprayed at least once a year when I was growing up. Massengill douche powder was they only thing he found that was truly affective.
Skunks have extremely poor eyesight. If the wind is in the wrong direction, they have no idea who or what is approaching. You really have to make some noise if you see them coming in your direction. Sometimes it has to be kind of a lot of noise before they hear it.
Furthermore, skunk-savvy animals know to stay out of their way, so they’re not used to stepping aside or giving way. That’s another reason they get hit by cars so frequently. As far as they’re concerned, the onus is on you to avoid them.
We just had the 3rd animal test positive for rabies here yesterday, 1 bat, 2 skunks! So there is that extra spice of, hey is everybody current on their vax? added into the mix. Doesn’t change the rank smell, though. Good luck with the peroxide/Dawn/tomato juice cocktail, wish I knew of something stronger for you!
Oh, gawd, I remember when my childhood dog got sprayed in the ’70s. 120lb German Shepherd in full winter coat. Fortunately, it was spring, so my dad ended up shaving his coat to 2″ and putting a heater in his dog house. A more pathetic, apologetic dog you have never seen. I felt so bad for him, I had to love on him, which meant *I* got the tomato juice scrub, too. Don’t think I’ve ever seen my mother so mad at me!
You’ll need to hold her about as you wash her, because the peroxide baking soda solution is like ipicac for dogs. Made that mistake once.????
Smell and our reactions to smells is a funny thing. My dog Holly growing up ALWAYS managed to find skunks. Eau de skunk was just part of how she smelled. Constantly. I really really loved that dog, so now I have positive associations with skunk smell. It’s homey! Put me in a room that smells like gasoline on the other hand, and I cannot function and will feel very sick.
You have my sympathies! I hope Sookie gets deodorized quickly. BTW, you can clear your nose by sniffing coffee beans. It won’t clear odor that is still in a room though.
Poor Sookie and I hope she smells better soon! I’ve been fortunate enough never to be THAT close to anything sprayed by a skunk, and I hope I never will.
Last summer my dogs got skunked a lot-3-4 times, way too many times. There is one traditional “eau de skunk“ we all know – but the one that kills me, smells like burnt tires and electrical Hazards + an overlay of gagable nasty. Anyway, we found coating our pooches in a paste of baking soda, peroxide & dawn, and letting it sit for 15-20 minutes, followed by shampooing helped. It was bad a couple of times when our Chloe caught it in the snout- can’t use the magic paste, think of how garlic can linger and exude through the skin for days, now think skunk for a month. I finally decided to try carbon treats, I think they helped. My sympathies to you & especially Gordon, no one else in my family can do the bathing, so that has been my late night chore on several occasions.
Bet that burst Gordon’s fantasy bubble
Hahaha! I totally thought that too!!
Bless you. Been there done that.
“She is huge, she is slow, unless she is charging, and she’s barks like a fog horn.”
????????????????????????
That is an awesome visual. Thank you. Also, full sympathies for you. That does sound truly awful. ????
We had this happen in February- it’s was super cold but we had to open all the Windows in the house. Placing fresh coffee from in bowls throughout the house, really helps. Change bowls every other day. Took us 8 days to not be overwhelmed with the oder. When it rains and the dog gets wet, you WILL smell the skunk! It took 2 months and 5 designing baths before our lab stopped smelling.
We had this happen in February- it’s was super cold but we had to open all the Windows in the house. Placing fresh coffee grounds in bowls throughout the house, really helps. Change bowls every other day. Took us 8 days to not be overwhelmed with the oder. When it rains and the dog gets wet, you WILL smell the skunk! It took 2 months and 5 de-skunking baths before our lab stopped smelling.
Poor Sookie! I feel for you. Having a stuffed up nose during allergy season is a good thing in these circumstances. I had those types of smells that almost made me throw up it was so bad. I remember saying “why can’t my nose stuff up now?!”
I understand the stench. Growing up in rural area we had skunks. Nothing is worse then accidentally hitting and running over one with a car. You’re trapped in a car with the smell. No escape. You pray to get out of the vehicle but you are miles from home and walking is out of the quesrion. It is torture. My brother was learning to drive and the rest of us siblings were in the back fighting to stay on the none stink side. Fun memories.
Tecnu poison oak and ivy cleanser works better than the peroxide/dish soap deskunking recipe that is online.
Country girl here. Growing up, skunk smell was a part of my life, like fresh manure and that chemical you put in natural gas. So skunk and manure- no problem. Kinda homey. But I have never adjusted to that chemical to this day. Still makes me nauseous almost immediately.
According to my mom, nothing got rid of the smell of a skunking, but we didn’t have the internet in those days!
Sorry about that. Most of us have been there, sadly.
Back when I was in high school, my big goofy cat, Nugget, got out and found a skunk. We bathed him in the sink and he merowled in misery until he tasted the tomato juice we were using. He liked that. So he licked at the tomato juice while my mom washed the stink out of him.
lol. that’s pretty cute. Didn’t know cats liked tomato sauce.
There isn’t anything that compares to freshly sprayed skunk. Even a year later, I think I can still smell it in the carpet
Our Shepard decided to charge a skunk while at the summer house. 4 gallons of tomato juice later the one bathroom was rendered near unusable from the stench. We took Boda to the vet to check for damage and he told me to get Massingil douche, mix it up and soak her. He said maybe once, probably twice. At the drug store I asked for the douche and was discreetly given a tiny box of packets. Boda being a monster the little packets were not going to do it. I apparently too loudly asked if they carried a big jar and that the little box was not enough. I got three of the largest jars and it worked.
Ughhh… I’ve been dreading this day at my house. My dog loves to chase critters, it’s only a matter of time. I’d be dying too.
I remember my vet mentioning once that he sold a shampoo for it. Not sure how effective it is, but maybe something to look into. Hope something works for you.
OMG ???? I really believed that something like that can happen only in book ???? (I am from Europe, we don’t have skunks) ????. Lol
Tomato juice doesn’t actually work. Stick with the peroxide. Poor dog. Poor everyone in the household.
I know it sounds strange, but Summer’s Eve feminine wash works well for any lingering smells after the peroxide dip.
Oh no!! I am so sorry. Happened to my dog last year. He is a terrier and apparently a skunk got in our fenced back yard. And the darn dog charged past me into the house before I realized what had happened. Days of airing out the house. I hope the peroxide helps! Your poor nose…
After the peroxide and soda (with a little dish soap mixed in for sudsing), wash with Selsum Blue shampoo. My vet recommends that to help them smell better. It really does work. Good luck!!
Oh dear Lord. Brings back the nightmare of having our 2 St.Bernards get sprayed years ago. That smell! Hubby piled them in the back of the truck and took them to the car wash. Then they got the peroxide and soda. I hope everyone will be ok.
I am picturing St. Bernards at the car wash. With them being so big, and given the water pressure at the car wash, that actually makes a lot of sense. But, oh what a sight that must have been for lookie-loos!
Haha that’s a really great idea!! And what a sight (and smell!) to behold!
yikes. Oh poor Sookie and poor you!!!! Hope relief comes soon! Gordon, “waiting for me” lol…..
Ha! The last snippet I read before bed. Hilarious (sorry), good night!
I had a toy poodle that managed to get sprayed through the very small gap between the gate and fence. Directly in her face. Best we can surmise is she was barking at a skunk passing in the field behind the house. I don’t remember what all my mom tried to get the smell out but the poodle still smelled like skunk years later whenever she got wet.
Smelled skunk before and gotten a migraine. I cannot blame you for this.
Oh no! I’m sorry!
This happened to our dog one January, when the weather was in single digit temperatures, at 10pm the day we came home from the hospital after having our 2nd baby. The dog was sprayed only a couple feet from the back door and ran straight back inside before the spray had time to settle. Our whole house felt like it had been chemical bombed. Our throats burned and our eyes watered. My husband washed the dog in the garage with dawn and peroxide and baking soda, while I scrubbed the kitchen (where she came inside). In the morning, the whole house was still throat searingly awful, and the dog still smelled, so we opened every window (to the 8 degree air), took the dog to a professional groomer (which made a difference!), and then we went and sat in the children’s section of Barnes and Noble with our 3 day old baby and our 3 year old. And boy did people give us a wide berth! ???? Even the poor baby smelled like a skunk.
We ended up having to call a restoration cleaning company to de-skunk our house. They used a hydroxyl generator to clean the air. It took a whole week of hauling it from room to room.
To add insult to injury, my husband had been getting ice cream out of the freezer when the dog ran in, and EVERYTHING in our freezer (including the 15 freezer meals I had made in preparation for the baby’s arrival) was contaminated with skunk stench. But we didn’t realize until a week later when we got out the ice cream again and found out exactly how awful Butter Pecan Skunk ice cream tastes.
At the time, with a brand new baby, it felt like the worst thing that had ever happened to us. Now it’s pretty funny. We ended up buying a knitted skunk hat from Etsy for the baby, for her newborn photos. ????
So hang in there! And call in professionals as needed!
Wow, just wow! You folks win! I never see skunks on our farm. They pretty much ninja about without disturbance. I saw more skunks when i lived in Philadelphia. We had a yard skunk we named Flower. Everyone pretty much ignored each other, though i always took care to never come around a corner of the house suddenly. Flower especially loved hunting for worms in the rain. Every once in a while, a waft of skunk would drift in, but thankfully i didnt have much of a reaction. I wonder if skunk smell reaction is like the taste of cilantro. Genetics play a part.
That’s what I’ve been told. My dad and I like the smell of skunk (to us it smells like bottled lemon juice) but my mom and brother find it horrendous. On the other hand, mom and I can handle artificial sweetener but dad and bro say it’s like licking a tin can. All of us think cilantro tastes like soap!
No. Skunk does not taste like cilantro to me. I have issues with sulfur medications which is genetic.
Oh, I really feel for you? That is the absolute worst. You are a good sport.
Ha! That is the best!
I feel for you. One of my foster dogs managed to get skunked. AFTER leaping over my fence because said skunk was in the middle of the road flaunting itself. Sigh. Life with dogs.
And I ditto your assessment of the baking soda, hydrogen peroxide & Dawn dishwashing soap remedy. Wayyyy better than tomato sauce.
I bet you will stock up on peroxide now.
Lol everytime I read about something Gordon does, I visually superimpose Curran on him in my mind automatically now.
oh no. that is the worst. someone told me to set bowls of baking soda out in the room and it would help absorb the odor. I still don’t know if it worked or just wore off… Good luck.
Also, watch Sookie REALLY closely because most people I know who have gone through this, have had the same dog do the same thing within a week of the first time. It’s uncanny.
Ha ha ha. De skunking the dog. Tomato juice worked on me but Memphis, the German shepherd, required hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. Then he went to vet for a medicated bath unrelated to being skunked.
Memphis was thirteen and got skunked because was he was the second dog in line and the first dog was agile enough to be missed.
Thank you, Ilona Andrews for the post. No not everyone can smell the real skunk Smell. Most people just smell the “skunk odor”. My vet says because it is a musk and everyone Musks smells differently. Makes sense as musk based perfumes for humans make my nose run.
I recently saw a very large skunk wander alongside a construction site and up along the path I had just taken. A minute later and Mr Skunk and I would likely have met with devastating results. Sorry about Sookie. The joy of having pets. My sister and her boyfriend at the time were camping with his German shepherd and the dog encountered a porcine and got a face full of quills. Hello emergency vet services.
Yeah, these cases of interspecies miscommunication are terrible. But what’s Sookie supposed to do? The skunk raised its tail, dog-etiquette demands that she sniffs its butt(!)
I do mind a slight whiff of skunk on the breeze, from far far away – it reminds me of wild places and creatures.
But up close? Holy creature of hell, I like to vomit. I’m impressed that you were able to sleep. I would not have been. The neighbor’s dog got skunked one summer when I was pregnant, and I had to shut every window in our non air conditioned house. It was horrible.
Unfortunately, skunks don’t run. I had to back my truck (3/4 ton diesel)up once when I came upon one crossing the road. I saw the sign and put it in reverse.
Poor Sookie, I hope the peroxide and soda works well.
50% white vinegar works well too. Wash with original Dawn to cut the oil, then rinse, followed by a leave in rinse of the vinegar. (Just be careful not to get it in the dogs eyes ). I had 3 Great Danes get sprayed all at the same time. Good times were had by all ????
All my sympathies! The peroxide, dish soap, and baking soda live in a bucket under our sink. Lucky Sookie is short haired, so you won’t need gallons, right?
When our Dog got hit by a skunk, Mom washed her in tomato juice and when that didn’t work as well as she like added my brother’s High Karate colon. The colon got rid of skunk smell but not use if the scent of the colon wasn’t worse. The works High Karate still bring a big laugh in our house.
I hope Sookie likes baths.
My housemate’s dog hates them like poison but any stinky bog he can jump into is just fine.
Peroxide and Dawn dish soap works wonders. The soap cuts thru the oils in the spray and gets it off the fur.
Grew up in Alaska. Every year the salmon would swim up a stream to spawn and then die. Our dog Speedy would delight in rolling in the stinky fish remains. I couldn’t handle it either. Wish I had known about peroxide and soda back then
Oh that’s even worse than skunk!
???????????? Gordon thought he was gonna get lucky, Instead he got skunky ???? . I’m sure that was a huge let down
So very sorry.
I was up close to that smell once (but inside a car and the offending object (not the car) was outside), and it was absolutely awful.
Here’s hoping peroxide arrives very soon now.
🙁
Probably a case of the dog walking around a corner and two beasts got surprised…but the skunk reacted faster! My sympathies!
Its skunk season. Our dog played with a striped kitty too and the skunk was not happy. Our house smelled for days.
Sorry. Just really sorry. Maybe it was a slightly deaf skunk? Lame skunk? Too busy on its phone and got startled skunk? Just sorry. Also drug store brand hydrogen peroxide or lab grade?
Some time ago my husband and I were driving through Marin County to the coast and passed a car parked at the side of the road. Then we realized the car belonged to the guy with the camera, the one sneaking up on a skunk to take a picture up close and personal. We both reacted the same, “OMG, what an idiot! ” Needless to say we did not stay to see what happened…
I’m so sorry about the smell. I’m glad that I have a strictly indoor cat. My Mischief is terrified of going outside even though she loves to look out windows. But I don’t blame her. This was before I adopted her five years ago, but the last time she was outside someone decided to use her as a bb gun target and nearly killed her. A family found her and took her to the vet that I also used. They got her all healed up but had to rehome her because their 4 cats didn’t want to share their home. Mischief still has a scar on her left side from where one of the bullets grazed her and she walks with a permanent limp from where a bullet broke her shoulder.
Poor baby! Some people are just evil. Thank you for being Mischief’s family!
I know this is horrible, but I just laughed my head off. Thank you for that! Luckily, our dogs have managed to avoid the skunks, although our hound dog refuses to realize that he should not go after copperheads.
A little vicks vapor rub under your nose will help a lot……commonly used in crime scenes to cope with decomposed bodies…good luck!!
Those things really have bad eyesight as I understand it. We never had problems with them around here until our cat was out at the wrong time, they both came around the same bush and collided. Our cat was too dumb to run away in time. Pew.
Our old cat has managed to get sprayed 4 times! You’d think he’d learn but apparently not. Never had any luck with the tomato juice, just made him smell like a skunky bloody mary. We use the peroxide, soda, dawn cure now. It seems to work the best. Problem is he has very thick fur so even with repeated washings he is fragrant for quite a while and even more so if it’s damp!
I’ve never had to clean skunk spray off a dog, but I have had to deskunk a car. Hands down, my number 1 favorite clean is the Oreck Enzyme Cleaner. I have seen this stuff work miracles in some of the foulest situations I’ve ever encountered. If you can’t get your hands on Oreck, you can try a different brand, but I keep a bottle of the Oreck stuff around for emergencies. Life saver, legit saved my car from the junk yard.
Poor pup, she’s in for a rough time of it 🙁
Hate to say it but your bedroom is going to faintly smell like that for at least a month. My dog has been sprayed twice. You would think she’d learn the first time but no. Skunks are friends and we want to play with them, it doesn’t matter that they spray us. I also suggest you buy the special shampoo from the pet store. All the homemade recipes we found worked a bit but the shampoo worked the best and quickest. Good luck.
I will say the first time our dog was sprayed gave me one of my funniest memories of my kids. I left to go pick up the ingredients for a homemade shampoo and came back to my 12 year old son and 7 year old daughter waiting for me on the front porch. My son tied a bandanna over his face and my daughter had toilet paper wades in her nostrils and they were both outside trying to get some fresh air. They looked so funny and where do dramatic about everything.
And yes the house smelled for 2 weeks and I swear that I would catch a faint skunk smell for at least 2 months after.
Didn’t read through all the comments but vinegar and water douche works well, Natures Miracle also makes a product specifically for skunk spray. I haven’t needed it since I bought it but I keep a bottle of the Natures Miracle on hand as a just in case. Nothing but time gets rid of the smell completely but I know from experience that vinegar and water douche cuts the smell at least 80%. Just tell people you have a really bad yeast infection when they give you the side eye for buying large quantities of douche. My dog was long haired and was sprayed on 2 separate occasions. Fun fun fun.
I’m also one of those small percentage. I literally gag. And my dog, one of the sweetest dogs in the world LOVES HER KITTIES. And she sees absolutely no reason that small black and white kitty can’t also be her friend. Usually late at night. We now open the door, cautiously sniff to see if there is any possible presence of skunk before we will let her out for the night. We keep skunk off on hand and as soon as we use the bottle, we purchase a new one the very next day. Because we WILL run out of it and we WILL need it again shortly. The worst part of living in Texas, including the heat and the mosquitoes, is that skunks are active year-round. You have my deepest sympathies. That smell is in your nose and your house, and I don’t care what anyone tells you, on your clothes, in your hair, on your furniture….
Been there done that multiple times. Try a product called Nature’s Miracle, we had the best success with it. They have one just for skunk, or did. Our worst case was the first time because our big boy had never encountered a skunk so he got it in the face. We had to wait for it to fade from around his eyes. And the carpet because he ran in and took a diving roll on the carpet while it was fresh at midnight of course. The good news is your nose will adjust.
Here is a link:
https://www.amazon.com/Natures-Miracle-Remover-Neutralizing-Formula/dp/B07HHKL75D/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Natures+miracle+skunk&qid=1591719324&sr=8-1
Funny story. We have a cat and a dog. Both are all black. Our dog is so used to seeing a black kitty running around, that when my roommate took him out for a walk one night, and he saw a black “kitty” out there, he thought nothing of sticking his nose right up the “cat”‘s butt.
Needless to say, it was NOT a cat, and hey, guess what? Skunks don’t like having cold wet dog noses shoved up their butt. Who’dathunkit?! He got sprayed right in the face.
We were lucky though. Apparently skunk spray to the face can actually blind and/or kill(!!) a dog. Our puppers was miserable for the night, and I was the one who had to do the majority of the scrubbing the next day (we used apple cider vinegar and baking soda), cause neither of my roommates could stand the smell, but other than that, he was unharmed. Best of luck in your de-skunking~
My family has had lots of dogs…not all smart dogs either. We’ve found the Dawn, hydrogen peroxide, and baking soda is the only solution that actually works. It also works on other smells. Good luck! Gotta love the doggos. At least my girls have yet to find a skunk. There’s mythbusters episode where they test different remedies and the best part is they can’t get a skunk to spray them! It was highly entertaining to see them trying to get a the skunks to spray (humanely). The skunks were no dummies they knew they weren’t in danger.
My mom feeds the stray cats on her front porch, and there is a regular visitor of the skunky variety. I’ve often dared her to jump out of her house and yet “BOO” just to see if she’ll do it. No luck so far.
What is this peroxide and soda method?
We don’t have skunks, but we do have foxes. My beagles love a good roll. We’ve tried the tomato method – that’s a failure. If you have a secret sauce that works – share it please.
There are recipes earlier in the replies.
NO TOMATO JUICE (yes, I am yelling)
We had white cats and the tomato juice only made them pink and embarased.
It really doesn’t work. I haven’t read all the other posts but please ask your vet for the better options.
Sorry for the yelling but from experience comes wisdom, eh?
My dog got skunked once too. It is most horrendous stench imaginable. I feel for you.
Oh my that is awful. So sorry I hope the washing gets it off her. You may have to clean the garage too so the smell won’t creep into the house.
Oh man! Once when we were celebrating a birthday sleepover my sister and I (along with 8 of our friends) had the joy of a skunk dying under the porch. The smell was so bad we all were gagging, eyes watering and vomiting until morning. The smell stuck in our hair, clothes, carpets for MONTHS! I, to this day, still have a scent memory and sympathy retch thinking about it. Best of luck to you! May you not have the same experience.
Not all dogs learn the lesson. My neighbor’s dog, a lovable doofus, got sprayed point blank TWICE. Don’t count on this being a learning experience for the doggo. You have my sympathy, the stench is unbearable.
Natures Miracle available in most pet stores works amazing. I have two short coated dogs and they get skunked usually once. This stuff works
If the peroxide doesn’t work, try Nature’s Miracle Skunk Odor Remover. I have a husky that’s been sprayed more than three times and we’ve tried everything to get the smell out of his very thick fur. One time he was even sprayed in the mouth and burped up skunk smell for the next two weeks (that was fun). Nature’s Miracle was the only stuff that worked and we now always keep a bottle on hand, just in case. I hope you’re able to get the smell out. It’s definitely the worst!
Oh, the poor puppie-dog!
Oh NO!!!! I feel for you. It’s one of my big fear of mine when let the dogs out at night. I was coming back from the barn one night and saw Ted playing with something. It was a skunk! How he didn’t get sprayed that night before I could call him away is beyond me.
We had a skunk spray the intake of our aircondition unit at the Charlottesville farm. We had to leave at 11 at night and stay in a hotel for 2 days. It made your eyes water and it was the whole house.
Aaaaah! Oh, no! Bummer! All the sympathies. And sending wishes for lightning fast peroxide acquisition and effectiveness. And you probably should take a nap.
Veterinarians have a special solution that helps for skunk smell because sometimes K9 officers get sprayed. Your noses will get used to it so you won’t smell it after a few days, but visiters to your house may still detect a faint aroma of skunk even two weeks later. I’m so sorry.
Poor pup and poor Gordon! One word hotel. Either that or make sure the office reno includes a hideaway bed.
Skunks can only see about 6 ft in front of them. I feed some stray cats and I get everyone else. Lots and lots of skunks and none have sprayed thankfully. It takes a lot for a skunk to spray as it takes a lot of calories to recreate and fill their glands they normally just run away and not spray. It is funny to watch them go into threat posture with the tails up.
I have mistaken the scent of rutting deer with skunks it is even stronger.
My dogs never learned. My boxer was convinced skunks were odd colored kitties. just aching to associate with her. “skunk off” is the best, everywhere it touches the smell just disappears.
The skunk “pedway” goes right past my house – forest preserve one block east and swamp two blocks west. They carry that odor even if they haven’t sprayed anything. It comes in through closed windows even in the dead of winter. Hella wake up call at 3:00 am….
My sister has had to wash four dogs at various times: the beagle mix and the terrier mix because they got aggressive with the skunk, and the golden retriever mix and the pitbull mix because they thought it was a cat, and they live with cats, and thought the “cat” would play with them….
Hope there are good treats for everyone after the bath procedure today!!
I feel your pain (smell it too!) Hopefully the smell in your room will dissipate quickly!!
Our childhood dog Ringo escaped one afternoon and took off for the woods behind the house. An hour later he came running back to the house squeezing through the hole in the fence he had made baying and yelping. Not only had he found a skunk but it was a dead skunk and he had rolled in it. My mother was an ER nurse and on her way home from the store (tomato juice in those days) she stopped for masks, gloves and gowns for everyone to wear to bath the dog. Ringo was already an unusual looking dog being a Bassett/Saint Bernard mix but after his bath of two cases of tomato juice he was a PINK Bassett/Saint Bernard mix.
I’d love to see this moment written into a book, it’s so relatably epic! It’s also awful on a laughingly horrific way. Here’s a good remedy if you aren’t already using it already 🙂 https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/home-living/get-rid-of-skunk-smell-on-dog/
I use Dead Down Wind shampoo when my dog gets sprayed. It’s the stuff hunters use to remove their scent and it works fantastic.
Hey, Ilona–
There’s a product you can use to remove mildew from your tent or skunk from your dog, which breaks down the enzymes in the skunk’s spray, and which I’ve found the most effective thing out there. It’s called MiraZyme. I found it at LL Bean but it’s available in a lot of outdoor gear stores, an d general stores too–here’s a link: https://www.rei.com/product/852525/mcnett-mirazyme-odor-eliminator-8-fl-oz . I, too, am so sensitive in my sense of smell that tricky smells can make me gag quicker than you’d think possible! Good luck, sweetie! 🙂
I think you had the best solution for the smell…Gordon! In a towel no less!
I am so sorry about the pup and the skunk! I hope you get the smell out of everything…
Yep, class should be called Financing a Car/House 101.I luckily grew up as a daughter of 2 bankers, so all this was instilled in me at a very early age.
Thank you for the list. We all love you for it! Blood Heir is perfect!
Poor dear. I really feel bad for you.
We never found a remedy that worked when I was growing up (50 years ago!) but the dogs were farm dogs, so they stayed outside. I do remember my mother trying to de-skunk Poppy – We were out of tomato juice, so she just opened a can of stewed tomatoes. The poor dog had chunks of tomato in her hair for a week. She refused to get close enough for us to get the chunks off. (Since it didn’t work too well, we didn’t try very hard.)
Part of the problem we had with skunks was my father’s method of feeding the small animals on the farm. We fed the dogs and cats with left-overs and table scraps, but there was also kibble available at all times.
We bought dog kibble at the local feed store in 25 pound bags. The bag went into a large metal drum, we opened the bag, and turned the barrel on its side. Anything that was hungry could help itself. I know we fed possums, armadillos, and skunks as well as the dogs, ducks and cats. (The cats mostly used it as a mouse magnet, however.)
The dogs were just bright enough to avoid a second spraying, for the most part, except of course, for George. He was named for George of the Jungle from Rocky and Bullwinkle and was about that smart. He was afraid of skunks but still managed to rile one up every so often. It just had to wear off – he was afraid of people, too.
Oh Gawd! this is sooo funny – skunk stories! Best we can do in Oz is kangaroo road kill or pub(bar) puke at midnight (yep, dog rolled in in it three times at 1am +). wish all the remedies above were available 30 years ago)) Sorry for you all, but the most entertaining blog EVER!
Sigh, just to bring justice back into your marriage, some evening you are going to have to be waiting for Gordon as he gets out of the shower with an adult beverage, a slice of chocolate cake, and a smile. He can pick the order he wants. Takes a hero to deal with that.
Also might ask Misty how to attract owls to your yard. They like skunks for dinner.
I am in the midst of rereading the Kate books so I immediately thought of Grendal and laughed. Poor Sookie! The indignity, how dare that skunk!
One night when my son was two months old, my sleep addled husband let the dogs outside. He didn’t realize until they came in, shook, and rolled all over the furniture that my white dog Zelda’s snout was yellow with skunk spray. Link, her partner in crime, also got a coating.
So there my husband is, 32 degrees outside, using peroxide and baking powder for wash number one because I couldn’t stand it. I had wash 2 that night to get the chemicals out. Our entire house smelled like skunk, and we were having our annual Thanksgiving dinner party in five days. I spent the next three days waging war on my house to chase out the lingering stench. They got about five baths before it went away. And the oils smelled more when they were wet, so every time there was a bit of precipitation the dogs smelled horrid again.
I had a Sesame Street Scratch N’ Sniff book growing up in the 80’s, and one of those smells was skunk. Didn’t bother me much, or maybe was desensitized to it at the sponge-age of 3.
When I finally got to smell the real thing, I thought it was remarkable similar to pot smoke. Heh.
Skunk smell is the gift that keeps on giving. My dad borrowed my car and hit a skunk. It smelled bad after a rain for years.
Beaker got spayed three times last year. My bedroom was declared a disaster area and closed, boarded off, and abandoned. We tried the peroxide Dawn bomb. It did nothing. I also crated her, and it’s too late once it gets in follicle I guess. I did find a decent shampoo, not perfect, but Beak likes baths, from Skout’s Honor. The second spray was before a trial. Where she was touched. Judge didn’t notice. The skunk perished, I suspect a team effort. Chapter must have been in front.
Mud, stop spaying your dog! Once is all it takes.
::dies laughing:
???????????? Been there, done that! Up here in Ontario (Canada) the pet stores carry Skunk Off. It works! Good luck !
Everyone is so distracted by el skunko that you forgot your buddy Grace Draven’s new book is out today! (must…refrain…from…making…political…analogy…..)
Good book so far!
I feel for you both. There is no real describing the true nastiness of fresh Skunk smell. My dogs have been sprayed numerous times!! The worst was a tug of war that the whippets got into…….Seriously! One had the front end, one had the back end. When they finally let go, the poor skunk crawled halfway across our property and rolled over to die 🙁 The whippet who had the front end Had skunk breath until the day he died, many years later.
We’ve perfected the use of Baking Soda, Peroxide and Dawn Dish soap and I now always keep stock of all three. Trust me, washing a Leonberger (140 lbs of hair) at 1 am in October in Ontario is not fun when you are lacking supplies.
Sorry for your experience, I can definitely comiserate!
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When I smell skunk! I am always taken back to Forest River Mission in Western Australia and the Flying Fox Bats.
OMG! you just reminded me! Getting s**t on by a flying fox and having to drive kilometres to find a tap(faucet) to sit under and wash off the stench (nup!) Verrrrry long time ago….
Oh, I am so sorry for you. My beagle tried to make friends with a skunk once. Dumb dog. My adult daughter was home at the time and called me at work to say “the dog smells bad” … but she is nose blind to many things and didn’t realize the dog has been sprayed by a skunk. She let the dog wander around in the house (based on the odorific evidence, she rolled around on my bed trying to get the smell off and on the carpet). When I got home from work and walked in the door, I nearly vomited from skunk smell in the house. The dawn/hydrogen peroxide/baking soda worked the best for getting the smell out of the dog and the bed. I had to wash my sheets and pillows and pillow cases multiple times and hang them out in the sunshine (that helps too) before I could sleep on them. We ended up washing the dog multiple times before I could no longer smell her from across the room. The hydrogen peroxide bleached her dark brown fur to light brown. And, we threw her collar away, it was not salvageable. We used dawn, baking soda and vinegar to get the smell out of the carpet. It was NASTY! Our house smelled of skunk for at least two weeks.
a dogs nose is infinitely sharper than ours so what did she think about her stench?
Hehe… Gordon must have thought he was getting a nice surprise and instead got a nose full of parfum a la skunk. ????
I’m sorry… I just couldn’t help laughing even though it is awful for you. Hope the treatments are working. Big hug.
Heh. You ain’t smelled nothin’ yet! When I was young, which was half a century ago, my sister bought a “de-scented” skunk as a pet. Thank God that it’s illegal now (at least in Ohio) to do that to a skunk. Their urine and feces also carries that glorious scent. She was supposed to train it to the litter box, but she didn’t stay home to work with it for even a day, so it just wet and dropped piles all over her bedroom. She was also supposed to cage it, but she let it run free. Then, after a year or so, she got married and couldn’t take a pet to their rented house, so there was the skunk, in the room I was supposed to get to finally have my own room, stinking the place up, mean as a snake, wild as a feral thing. My sister liked the skunk only until it wasn’t a novel thing anymore, then she dumped it on us. My older sister finally found someone who wanted it and took it away in a cage after my mother caught the thing while wearing her oven mitts to avoid being bitten or scratched, but let me tell you — that room took months to clean. Roll up the old linoleum, replace it with carpet, repaint all the walls so the place stank of paint instead, and the stench just kept right on.
In today’s world, when a skunk sprays near the house, I use Febreze on my AC unit’s filter. My horses never bother a skunk, although they have, in the past, trapped a dog who got in past the electric fence. Skunks just trundle in and out of there, and as long as they keep their tails down, they’re fine. If their tails are up, they get shocked. They don’t appreciate that. I have cats in a building away from the house because my husband claims he can’t breathe when cats are around (not true – he has one he cuddles in the house, but it’s the only one allowed in the house) and when I go out to feed them, I see skunks in the yard. Because it’s too far from the house to use any lights on the house to get out there, I carry a flashlight. Skunks don’t like sudden light, so when I see one, I shine the light on it, and it will eventually trundle off. Sometimes, when I’m in a hurry, I speak to it and tell it to move and let me go to my house. The voice bothers them, too, so they wander off. Last night, one that wasn’t even between me and the house actually RAN from me. I believe that’s the first time I’ve ever seen one run. Mostly, they trundle, head down, as they nose the ground for food. They eat under my bird feeders. You always know one came and ate because they just kind of pee wherever they happen to be, and it reeks!
No matter how bad you think it is, imagine having the sensitive nose of a dog and getting sprayed. My heart goes out to poor Sookie.
What puzzles me is why you wouldn’t have peroxide in the house. It’s the active ingredient in every laundry product for getting stains out of colored clothes, and I keep it on hand for laundry when I need to get something more than just washed. It removes blood from all fabrics I have used it on, and brightens clothes that aren’t just white. It doesn’t fade the colors a bit. Handy stuff, that hydrogen peroxide. Oh, yeah — it also cleans wounds.
Oh dear! ????
Did a quick read up on the chemistry. One of the more interesting quirks is that it a mixture of a bunch of chemicals. Some smell now , some smell later when they react with water.
However, the basics for cleaning remain the same, baking soda and peroxide, with soap because these are not water soluble.
Oh man, that’s terrible… but I’m laughing anyway!
Back when I was in high school, my uncle had a skunk getting into his chickens, so he and Grandpa set a live trap to catch it without making it spray. Once caught, they threw a blanket over it and took it down to the pond to drown it (animal loving granddaughter/niece read them the riot act for that!). Once it was in the water, they took the blanket off so they would know when it was dead. As soon as it stopped moving, they declared it dead, pulled the trap-with-skunk out of the water, and put it in the back of the truck to take it to an out-of-the-way area where the smell of decomposing skunk wouldn’t bother anyone.
Upon arrival at their destination, my uncle got out first and headed back to get the trap out. “Dad? It’s not dead!” (Grandpa said of course it was, they drowned it) “well, it’s looking at me!”
Grandpa, of course, came over to see what was going on. And that’s when the skunk sprayed them both.
Oh, but it gets better! See, I had a band concert that night, and Grandpa never missed a concert. So when he got home, he took a shower, found that he still reeked of skunk, showered again, and still smelled terrible. But at that point, he was running late for my concert, so he smeared some Vick’s under his nose so he couldn’t smell the skunk spray, and hurried off to the high school.
My parents and grandma’s didn’t appreciate his dedication nearly as much as I did. Especially his wife, who then had to ride home with him!
Oh, I’m so sorry. Unfortunately for Sookie (and everyone Sookie adjacent) generally speaking, skunks don’t run.
Being slow and huge and loud might encourage most small animals to make themselves scarce to avoid conflict, but skunks and porcupines absolutely will just stand there and watch as a big oblivious dog ambles up, then spray or stab the #%*~#% out of them if they stick their nose too close. They know perfectly well their odds are better if they stand their ground and won’t risk getting snatched on the run.
Unfortunately, some dogs react to getting sprayed or quilled with an incurable determination to ‘GET that little a**hole NEXT time!’*If Sookie falls in this category, you may need to hire somebody to trap and remove your furry little neighbors lest it become a recurring stenchfest.
*they rarely, if ever, succeed. They mostly just get sprayed or pincushioned again and again and again and again…
One of my former coworkers had a dog who was determined to win against skunks and rattlesnakes. Every year for over a decade, she would get sprayed in late May or early June, then bitten in late July. She never could figure out that she wasn’t ever going to win those battles.
I’m Facebook friends with indie writer Gayla Drummond* and her day job is as an Animal Control Officer for her local police department in North Texas. So far this year she has been skunked 9 times in the pursuit of her duties as ACO. Six times when the cage trap she set out caught the wrong animal. Twice when she was chasing a dog and they strayed to close to a skunk. And finally one morning she was headed out to her truck to go to work and she frightened one that was checking out her flower beds. She described that encounter so wryly I fell out of my chair laughing while at lunch at work. As she puts it she expects things like that to happen at work but definitely didn’t expect it to happen in her own front yard. She is another one who swears by the peroxide/dawn/baking soda mixture for taming the smell.
*her books are not my cup of tea but some of you here might like them.
We had a husky that got sprayed a few times. She was a smart dog so we figure she just liked the smell…or just really liked killing skunks and took the smell as an acceptable side effect. We tried the tomato juice thing. It didn’t work and turned her pink. As an added benefit she tried to shake herself off while still covered in tomato juice and our bathroom looked like a murder scene.
Eau de skunk was the smell of summer when I was growing up. Our street was built into the side of a wooded hill. The houses on our side had a backyard of woods. It was great for exploring from sun up to sun down. My back bedroom window faced the woods. At night, the skunks would check out the neighbors trash cans to see if the lids weren’t on tight. Windows open wide to catch the evening breeze. Can’t say that I enjoy the smell. However
i t does invoke wonderful memories of crickets singing, swarms of lightening bugs and warm summer nights.
It is an unholy smell. We live in fear that our cat,the real life ripper of souls,will decide that black cat with a stripe is an enemy then come home for us to enjoy.
Tomato juice doesn’t work, the worst part is the dog goes crazy trying to drink it.
Basically you aren’t going to totally get rid of the smell, it is to make it tolerable. I found the commercial stuff doesn’t work, peroxide,water,baking soda are the best I have seen.
I have never smelled a skunk in my life – and NOT for lack of opportunity. I’m fairly certain I am missing some scent receptors involved in recognizing stench. When other people are gagging and retching and complaining of the stink, to me, the air tastes an odd variation on metallic.
I don’t know if this will work in the room, but it sure works in a car. Flick a bic. You flick the bic a few times in the car and the smell is gone. Never had a skunk spray close to the house so I don’t know how it will work indoors. Maybe lighting a none fragrant votive candle will do the same thing.
The look on Sookie’s face clearly says, “What’s your point?”
I have nothing to add to the deskunking discussion that hasn’t already been said but I do suggest getting some bells for Sookie’s collar. I have a blue lacy named Willow that was decimating the population of birds, squirrels, possums, and raccoons (thankfully no skunks). Since blue lacy’s were bred to hunt feral hogs, they don’t just kill but obliterate their prey. After the fifth time having to pick up small animal chunks, I decided something had to change. Amazon sells a very nice set of brass jingle bells for a dogs collar that has worked like a charm. It’s impossible for her to move quietly now. The second she leaps off the back steps you can watch the squirrels and birds take to the trees. I haven’t had to dispose of any mangled animal corpses since I put the bells on her collar.
In answer to the How? question; skunks simply recognize no threat to themselves and acknowledge no higher authority. They know they are carrying the heaviest of weaponry, and everything from elephant to shrew will move out of their way, if they know what is good for them.
There’s reports, perhaps apocryphal, of skunks being hit in the road because they stood their ground and sprayed the onrushing vehicle.
Your small, furry, non-skunk-savvy tank probably expected the skunk to behave like any self-respecting squirrel or rabbit and turn tail and flee before her righteous rath. Unfortunately, a skunks’ idea of turning tail is entirely different ????!
uffghhh is the noise one makes after that first inhalation of eww de skunk.
No skunks here in the UK thankfully, but funnily enough I was just watching Chris Packham on Springwatch (a live tv show) talking about the foul smell grass snakes release and how much he enjoyed it (much to his stepdaughters disgusted amazement).
We had 2 yellow labs that decided to make friends with a skunk. I was out shopping and came home to find my husband had put them in the garden tun in our bathroom with shampoo and warm water(bubble bath). They looked like they were at the spa, acted like it too.!Took two days and fours baths with de skunking shampoo, the tub was so high I had to climb in to reach all of them. At 100lbs each it was a hard job. We could still smell it if we put our noses right in their fur.
Just happy she didn’t get hit in the eyes. That wouldn’t have been good.
Life is an adventure.
When I was small (60 years ago) we used to vacation in the Blue Ridge mountains. One day while riding the parkway we encountered many instances of ‘dead kunk’. The next day my father stopped at a gas station which were all full service at the time. The poor attendant raised the hood and almost passed out!
You have my sympathy.
Aww… so sorry. One of my worst memories from my childhood were when our dog got spray and brought into the house. It smelled for at least a week and …. don’t get me started on how we had to go to school smelling like skunk 🙁
When I was in high school, some of the boys went hunting in the drainage pipes and got a bunch of skunks. Being teenage, they cut the scent glands out, and early the next morning threw the ripe glands at the school administration office door, where the glands promptly burst. I had two classes in that hall… when I got home that day, my mother wouldn’t let me in the house until I had stripped and rinsed off with tomato juice. The school had to replace the solid wood door and several square yards of linoleum tiles. Even after painting the hallway it still had a lingering hint of skunk at year end. The boys, I believe, were suspended.
Nowadays, after the dawn & peroxide business, I use XO and Nature’s Miracle to remove the remaining smell on the dog & collar, and XO and a hotel- grade ionizer to clear the room.
My sympathies to you and your family during this trying time.
I hope Sookie learns from this experience so you don’t have a repeat!
No skunks in New Zealand so I don’t know what you suffered. I used have a cat called Pepe after the cartoon skunk cause as a very small kitten he had a very bad habit of stepping in his poohs and was consistently being bathed as that wasn’t a good smell but not unbearable. Greyhound farts are pretty bad, can clear a room but that at least fades and they don’t need a bath.
Nature’s miracle. Skunk odor remover… i keep a big bottle because my dogs are dumb…it also works when they roll in pig poo….ask me how i know
Yikes. I have much sympathy, as both cats and dogs have had skunk encounters. Being up close with fresh skunk spray is far worse than I imagined previously – it feels caustic to the eyes, and I know I nearly puked. I think we used the same solution (peroxide/baking soda) with a little dish soap added. Hopefully Sookie learned not to go near the pretty stripey again.
I used to have a cat door. One night, when my daughter was little, a skunk followed one of my cats in. When the cat objected to sharing his food, the skunk sprayed inside my house.
It was such an overwhelming smell that I couldn’t tell what it was. I thought something was on fire or burning. I grabbed my daughter and went to my mom’s. My mom said “how did you get sprayed by a skunk?”. I went home and took everything fabric to the laundromat. Next day I scrubbed the carpet and beds and furniture…
For the rest of its life, my living room furniture had a faint skunk smell when it was humid.
When you recommend using hydrogen peroxide as part of a bath for sunk odor, do you mean the 3% strength available at a pharmacy or grocery store? I know stronger hydrogen peroxide is available for use in factories and labs, the stronger solutions would be harmful. Saw a very strong hydrogen peroxide used to clean up a blood spill in a dirt parking lot. The spot bubbled and fizzed for 20 minutes.
Yup, grocery hydrogen peroxide works just fine. Our griff has a downy undercoat, so it takes a couple of baths to get the residual stink out.
Our dog got skunked in the face. Hard to get the smell off when it is on her face. Smelled like burnt rubber. Terrible. Lots of baths and had to trash her collar. The best thing I found to get the smell out of our house was to boil vinegar. The house will smell like vinegar for a while, but when the smell goes away it takes the skunk smell with it. That was the only way we saved our carpets.
Downy helps too. Our dog chases skunks until they spray him. He has not wised up over the years. Downy is your friend.
FYI, the peroxide/baking soda recipe for deskunking a dog works well for cleaning up pet stains. It can bleach carpet if you’re worried about that, but it removes the odor better than any of the commercial products I’ve tried.
In Alberta our Ben was always tangling w/ porcupines & skunks. Didn’t mind the skunk too much, but found something truly awful. We were with friends on the coast north of Vancouver and their little terrier loved rolling in anything rotting or putrid. One day, on a nearby dock, he found some sea otter doo. He was unbelievably rank for days. It gave us a new expression for when things went wrong: “coulda been worse. Coulda been sea otter shit!”
Hmm, my Dad was pheasant hunting with some buddies many moons ago and accidentally walked up on a skunk. Did you know you CAN get waited on at a gas-stop convenience store? On their way back, they stopped for gas and Dad only got maybe 1 step in when the clerk told him to “stop right there, whatever you need, I’ll get it”. Also, note Dad was riding home in the bed of the truck, cuz the guys didnt want him in th cab. And it was his truck! (To be fair, he probly didnt want to stink up his cab, either). But he was not a happy camper, at the time! Funny story, now though:-)
I’ve really had a radical readjustment (not through personal choice) of my sense of smell in the last few years. The smell of skunk doesn’t bother me…although, I doubt I would want it in my house…but flowers make me sick, along with 90% of the perfumes and perfumed products that people use these days. I’ve had to practice ‘social distancing’ for over 10 years because of it. To the best of my knowledge, however, most people with a ‘normal’ sense of smell would be seriously bothered by the scent of skunk. Ilona, you are not alone. Best of luck in your deskunking efforts.
I feel your pain. Our Lab has been skunked four times in the last three months. Once, at the beginning of quarantine, and the last two times were last Friday and Saturday. He first got skunked last year in the backyard and ran into the house. The living room smelled for about 3 months before slowly dissipating. We thought he had learned his lesson, but apparently not. Usually his skunk encounters are at night, but the first time this year was in the middle of the day on a walk and the poor thing must have gotten sprayed in the face since he kept trying to rub his face in grass, ivy, thorny bushes, etc. We did our peroxide/baking soda/dish soap wash, but used up most of the first two items. Since it was the beginning of quarantine, there was no baking soda or peroxide to be had in any of the nearby stores for a couple of weeks. Fortunately, we managed to get some in time for the 2nd spraying. Encounters 3 and 4 happened last week, on consecutive days. Sigh. Also, I had just gotten a brand new harness for his birthday and the second day he wore it was when he got skunked. Needless to say, despite all efforts to clean it, the harness still reeks. x_x
???? vet tech here. To get the smell out of your house, you can sit out bowls with coffee grounds in them. This is what we use at our clinic. Downside is that you have to keep pets out of it.
LOL this happened to my dog TWICE!!!! It’s like a rite of passage in dog ownership. My dad, who I love dearly, was an idiot and somehow let our dog loose at night for his nightly bathroom break (mind you we didn’t have a fence or invisible fence around our property!) and so Milou took off after a skunk once and quickly paid the price. He also spent the night in the garage. It really does stink up your entire house. My parents wasted time with tomato juice which I kept telling them did not work.
It was late at night and we couldn’t go out and buy anything so after giving up, my mom marched into the pet store the next day and asked “Do you have…?” and the employee finished for her “Deskunking shampoo? Yes, right here!” And my horrified mom asked “DO I SMELL??” And the employee laughed at her and replied that no, she didn’t but it was that time of year when lots of owners came in asking for skunk oder removal shampoos.
So for those of you who don’t know, skunk odor removal shampoo for dogs exist and you can buy them at any pet store or on Amazon. It’s good to just have on hand in case of an emergency. It was very effective and after a few washes, Milou smelled just fine apart from his nose. Th smell lingered on his nose and breath for a few weeks after the incident. The second time it happened, we had enough shampoo from the first incident to get the smell off of him.
Next time use an enzymatic cleaner such as Simple Solution that you use for dog and cat house accidents. Add it to the shampoo and wash. Leave it on for a couple of minutes, and no more smell. I found this out years ago when a couple of my dogs got skunked. Tomato soup, tomato paste and tomatoes did exactly nothing for the smell. That is when I discovered that simple solution worked.
My mum once got sprayed by a skunk. She was Australian , went to live with my dad who is so Texan, it’s painful. She had never seen a skunk and thought it was a cat. Tried to pat it. My grandmother (while laughing really hard) set up a bath of tomato juice, It’s an old wives tale and I’m not sue it’s true but Nanny swore by it.
It is a cat… a pole cat! Hahaha!
I am so so sorry. I feel your pain. Growing up my parents male golden retriever got sprayed twice. Second time in the mouth. He’d breath on you and you’d gag. I can’t handle skunk spray at all. Instant migraine and nausea. Glad to know peroxide and baking soda work!
Most dogs never learn. While our kids were growing up we would usually have two, three or even four dogs and clashes with skunks were a regular occurrence on a farm. One dog got the full spray straight down his throat. I was afraid he’d die, but no, he was OK after a bit. The downside was that for about a month every time he burped there was a cloud of noxious skunk based fumes. And he burped a lot. There’s a product called Skunk Off that seemed to work pretty well. We tried all the remedies. At one time three of the dogs managed to get sprayed. After multiple bathings the kennel still smelled as if the skunks were having a coffee klatch. Good times.
That’s the second author’s dog that got skunked this week. (The other dog hit that skunk up TWICE within a couple of days of each other.) When it happened to my dog, he stayed on got put on the chain of punishment. (He left the yard to give chase, thus applicable.) Then he got a cold bath with dawn dish soap and apple cider vinegar. (The only things I had on me. And they worked. I was in shock, but grateful.) He still smelled for about a week after, but not unbearably. So did I because I was the one who bathed him.
I sympathize, I truly do!
My family lived in Arkansas’ Ouachita mountains for several years. Our back yard was on a feeder creek so we were the watering hole for the local wildlife community. But we were lucky and our 7 cats never got skunked, not even once. I attribute that to my Boss cat, Princess Elspeth the Brat. (Misty Lackey fans will get the reference.) Ellie is the biggest, toughest, meanest, scariest cat in all Creation. Ask any animal from our area, they’ll ALL attest to this fact.
Cats usually scream when they fight but not Ellie, she’d just STARE at you and wait til you were too close to get away then land on you with all 4 claws and 20 lbs of irate Boss cat. All the animals were rightly terrified of her; even skunks gave her a wide berth.
BUT…
You may have heard the expression: “having buzzards for chickens”? Well, we did! Every year in the fall, the buzzards would roost in their 1000s… on our property. Talk about stink!
Now, you heard me say Ellie was mean? She’d go lay down on the road out front and wait for the buzzards to come down and “investigate.” Soon as they got close enough, yep, she’d jump up and hit em with all 4 claws and fangs too. She’d catch 3-4 buzzards at once that way. Then she’d come in the house laughing like a bouda, covered in buzzard blood and reek. And, since she was MY cat, and she slept on MY pillow every night, I got the joy of dipping her to get the stink off — before bedtime. I tell ya, there were days every fall I wanted to run away from home!
Our dog did that about 16 years ago. Worst 3am present ever. He stayed in the laundry room that night. I think we ended up using everything with tomato in it and half a bottle of dog shampoo, but he still smelled of skunk for a few days. 🙂
When our cat got skunked, I called the vet and said I would pay any price if they would deal with it. Skunk smell and cat in bathwater was a double whammy I just couldn’t deal with. Best $100 I ever spent.
I believe in the 80/20 rule. you know, where 80 of all reward comes from 20 of the effort? Well, I believe your blog is that 20. I’ve added you to the list of sites that I frequent. Thank you for the in depth and detailed blog posts. Not many people are willing to do that anymore.
And the annoying thing is that it doesn’t seem to bother the dog at all, right? Growing up on a farm in northern New York our dogs had the run of the woods and thought they were the kings of all they surveyed. Until the porcupine..Ouch! One dead porcupine and one stubborn dog with 80 quills in his muzzle.
We had two skunks get into a fight under our deck, even with all the windows & doors closed it was so bad it made our eyes water… We stayed in a hotel for two nights, until it aired out a bit.
You might find she smells just a little when in rains for the next year or so, I had a cat that got sprayed and that was the Case
Will you ever add to the posted story of gerald demille. Saw a short part wondered if there was more and where I could find rest of.
This is a little late but this works quicker than the peroxide/soda method for skunk. Get Nature’s Miracle Skunk Odour remover. First wash dog with Dawn dish soap (skunk spray is oily) then soak with the Nature’s Miracle. I let sit for 15 min then rinse. Use the Nature’s Miracle on any place the dog spread the stench. Smell is decreased by 90%. I usually apply the Nature’s Miracle again the next day.