Below are the items you will need when your dog gets skunked.
Tuesday night before The Fourth of July, Lily was let outside before bed and streaked across the yard to make a new friend. Turns out this friend was a foe. Lily took a direct hit to the face from a skunk. My dad, mom, Dan and I soon had a change in demeanor as the dog strode in the house afterwards. She made a beeline to Dad and Dan on the couch. I saw the dog's eyes were swollen shut. My mind had no clue what was going on, I probably had my mouth open. It was happening too fast for me to put it together until someone yelled "SKUNK". Then the smell hit me. Dan got her outside and starting dousing her with water. I was probably still standing in the same spot with my mouth open. Dan wanted to get her eyes the relief they desperately needed. He said she held her head up and took the water straight in her eyes, rinsing the acid out of them, poor baby.
After my shocked stupor moment...My mom got me back to planet earth and we got to our phones and started Google-ing the treatment.
1 quart hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup or half a cup of baking soda-we eyeballed this
1 table spoon of liquid dish soap-dawn for us
Dad went off to Walmart (it was after midnight) and got everything plus more. Mom and I stayed behind and starting working on the house. The damage was done. When the dog had come in the house the molecules of this skunk oil on her just followed her around like "Pigpen" from Charlie Brown, left her body, lifted into the house air and dropped on EVERYTHING. The couches, floors, walls...everything. I mopped the floors with ammonia and water. My mom stayed on the internet and found all kinds of ideas. We did about all of them. I took a turn while waiting for Dad to get back shoving tomato soup on the dog. I had to try the only tomato stuff we had in the house besides a real tomato (can you imagine...ME rubbing half of a real tomato on the dog? I would have done it it if was suggested). Thanks to Dan, Lily's eyes were better at this point and she licked the ground free of tomato soup while I rubbed her down.
Then came the peroxide baths-five of them. Dan and I tag teamed. My mom and dad sat on the porch watching us like tired zombies and telling us this was a precursor to late nights with our future, hypothetical children.
For good measure, we then washed her in fabric softener per another internet suggestion.
We set out ten solo cups with baking soda around the house. We lit every candle we owned. The smells were an awful combination but no one cared; skunk, cinnamon, rose garden, blueberry cheesecake, vanilla verbena, more skunk, vinegar, ammonia, and mango mae tai. Despite the other falvors, every time you walked from outside to inside you were slapped in the face with the skunk smell.
Nothing felt like it was working for the house.
I was mad. I looked at that dog and thought, "how can you be so darn inquisitive, you friendly little jerk?!" Dan said we may need new carpet and couches. We both joked we need a new dog. I thought, after this dog I don't want another one ever. This is a disaster.
It was 3 am and the dog was smelling better. Her snout was still stinky because it was tough to clean as we had to be careful of her eyes with this solution but it was a drastic improvement from before.
We used white vinegar and baking soda in the spray bottle onto the old air filter to help prevent the spread of the smell to the non affected rooms. This may have just clogged the filter by cementing the trapped particles. Oh well. That works too. We keep back up air filters in the house so we switched out for a new one the next day.
Lily was in a good enough state to sleep in her kennel in the laundry room. I got her an array of treats and put them with her in the kennel.
The day after we boiled apple cider vinegar for as long as we could stand it two different times. This seemed to help or maybe our burning eyes distracted us from the stench.
We baked ground cinnamon spread across a baking pan at 250 in the oven for an hour then we did it all over again. That was pretty lovely actually. I may do that on a regular basis.
I rubbed down the leather blend couches with baking soda and liquid soap.
Every time you left the house and came back in you could smell skunk but after a few seconds it went away. This lessened as the day went on.
It was the fourth so we were going to celebrate no matter.We prepped for our snacks and meals for the day. I cooked bacon for a salad later but you couldn't smell the bacon cooking. Believe that. Of all the smells I wanted in that house bacon would have been a welcomed respite. No such luck.
Dan got a rug doctor and cleaned the entire carpet with hot water and hydrogen peroxide. He then mowed. He is wonderful.
At three we all called it a day and started to party in the smelly house.
Dad got us fireworks. Ari and her BF did the work while Dad got attacked by fireants-the hits keep coming. Then I got a few crawl up my leg and attack me. I was done. I was tried, grumpy, bitten, and it was humid out. I went to bed shortly after. I had had enough of this "vacation".
Today is day two, Thursday after the incident. We are all tired and I am still grumpy. As I am typing I can smell my hands are not quite free of skunk smell.
Overall, I was glad I had my family there to help us out on this and we got a ton of laughs out of it. And how can I ever be mad at this beautiful animal?
This weekend, we are not doing anything. And Lily is not allowed out after dark.
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