Thursday, February 12, 2009

We have been SKUNKED!!! AGAIN!!!

We have two incredibly loyal members of the family....Denali (the Husky, 8yo) and Sophie (the German Sheperd, 2yo).




They are both the best family dogs! They are loving, playful and very protective!




However, they are also quite the trouble and mischief makers!!!!!!! They love messing with the wildlife that enters our yard.....especially chipmunks and SKUNKS!!!!!! I guess some dogs learn from their first experiences with skunks, but other dogs (ours included) seem to think, "bring it on skunky!" Our dogs always end up losing the battle and are quite humbled by the experience.



Here is Sophie, a smelly, muddy and humble mess after her brawl last night with a skunk!

Skunk smell is one of the most difficult smells to get out, especially if your dogs have extra thick hair. We have tried a lot of kitchen chemistry to dissipate the smell....tomato juice, vinegar, beer and hydorgen peroxide. The following recipe is the only one that has really helped:

Clear the Air Skunk Stink Remover

1 quart 3% hydrogen peroxide

1/4 cup baking soda

2 T liquid dish detergent (not the dishwasher type)

Mix the ingredients in a large bucket. The ingredients cause a really cool (and messy) chemical reaction so make sure the bucket is large! Wash the dog while the mixture is still foaming. This mixture creates oxygen which reacts with the thiols in the skunk smell to neutralize the odor. It really does help, but might take a couple washings.


Now I really doubt Sophie has learned her lesson, nor Denali! I know this will happen numerous more times as our Ohio weather becomes warmer this year. I just wish they'd stick to brawling with each other and not Mother Nature's other creatures! =)

7 comments:

Peggy said...

Oh no! When I saw the title to this post, I was ready to see some kind of cute felted stuffy of a little sinker. Sorry to hear it was skunks of the real, live variety!

Lisa said...

I wish it was about the cute felted type! =)

Melanie said...

I have never seen a skunk as we dont get them in Australia and I cannot imagine the smell. I rather think I am glad we dont get them because my dogs would never learn either.
Good luck with the smelliness:)

Anonymous said...

Oh no, Lisa! We had a skunk visitor at the beginning of the year. I think he and our cat (we don't have a dog) had a tiff and our cat, our outside furniture, the kids playstructure, etc, all came off second best. I wrote about it then in my blog but WISH I had your recipe... we tried vinegar and a few other things but nothing worked and we had to get rid of the couch. We had to put up with a skunky cat for a couple of weeks too! Our skunk hasn't left his odor for a while now... finger crossed he's found another cat to fight with... or dog!

Sara said...

When I was a girl growing up in Texas our animals would often have run ins with skunks. ICK... I can still smell it. Luckily we do not see as many skunks up here in Canada where I live now.

Tammy said...

Oh no! lol...poor doggies. :)

Unknown said...

Hi Lisa, I've got the same recipe for odor removal as you do, but I use equal parts of the same three ingredients......Molly is very good at tracking down the skunks around here!!