the smell of a skunked dog

So I'll finally have a post that lives up to my blog's namesake...except instead of a "wet dog", picture a "skunked dog".

This is my little buddy Jack just after he had a glorious chase down the hill from our house after a wiley brother skunk. A short battle ensued, but sadly, bearing only shiny white teeth and no projectile vileness, Jack quickly found himself standing in a cloud of "parfume de mephitus" (ode de skunky). I have to admit, it smelled completely different than I expected.

I'm sure I'm not the only good South Carolinian/New Mexican who has driven down a backroad on a mid-summer evening and caught a whiff of that unmistakable odor that seems to give the olfactory receptors a stiff uppercut. You know it when a smelly old "pole cat" is around. But this smell that Jack was wearing was a bit more like death mixed with pepper spray. The poor dog just put his ears back, tucked his tail and slinked back to the front porch...where apparently he had a grave misunderstanding that I was actually going to let him back inside.

I tied him up, snapped this quick photo, and got online looking for "de-skunking" remedies. I had always heard an oatmeal bath would do the trick, but I wasn't sure. I also heard that a tomato bath would work, but I was a bit sceptical. Turns out that a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap works pretty dadgum well at getting most of the horrible perfume off.

Our house does stink a little bit, but with a 7 month old baby girl living here, I'm sure no one will notice the difference!