Skunked here at 3am!

[dianer]

Cassie seems rather proud of her newly acquired odor but my eyes are running. Thank goodness she can't run into the house because her expen is fouled along with her bed. I am going to try the baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and dawn remedy. It says to be careful not to get it in the pets eyes and this worries me because she is never still. I've searched this forum on the topic and know there are others here that have BTDT. First I need to buy a new plastic tub because she chewed up the one I had. I really don't want to bring her in the house and use the deep sink. Her other adventures this week have been to eat all of the plants in my redwood planter, dig up and eat all the cat turds in the mini bark and chew up the irrigation to the orange tree. Ah the teen years.

[Aurora5000]

The following is a recipe for a mixture that is amazing at removing skunk smell. The important thing is to use it BEFORE washing the dog with shampoo, tomato juice or even plain water, these tend to "set" the skunk smell on the dog and make it more difficult to remove.

You need:

1 quart 3% hydrogen peroxide

1/4 cup baking soda

2 tablespoons dishwashing liquid

Depending on the size of the dog, you may need to double or even quadruple this recipe.

Mix everything together in a large bottle or small pail then apply to the dog, massaging it in well and making sure to get it right down to the skin.

Let it sit for about 10 minutes then rinse thoroughly. You may still detect a slight skunk odor while the dog is wet but it should smell MUCH better once dry!

If there is any left-over solution, just pour it down the drain as the reaction between the peroxide and baking soda does not last very long.

Whatever you do, do not try to bottle it and save it for next time, the chemical reaction that occurs can cause the container to explode!

[Darcy's Mom]

My sympathies go out to you. I remember those teen years very well. Darcy and Molly chewed an entire corner off of one of my kitchen counters. I've not had any skunk experiences but I can only hope you can get the odor out completely. I can't imagine trying to keep track of a very mischievous Cairn as yours seems to be. Good luck with the bath. I've heard bathing in tomato juice helps.

[mrskti]

wholly crap, Cassie has been a busy girl!!!! LOL

[dianer]

Well I talked with a vet and a groomer in person on my way to buy hydrogen peroxide. Both told me use the mixture posted. Vet said keep it out of the eyes as best you can and don't skimp on the detergent. Groomer said Dawn is best and to apply it to a dry dog, then rinse, concentrating your efforts on the head and neck. My nose is so numb I can't tell yet how it worked, she is drip drying on the patio now. Turns out I'm allergic to skunk so I needed antihistamine pills and eye drops just to bathe her! I didn't want her in my car or I would have taken her to a professional. It figures since I'm allergic to mink as well. Told my DH I'm not allergic to diamonds though. I think if I every got sprayed I'd need meds quick. Well that's done and I'll let you know how it worked out later.

[bradl]

Hoping for a swift recovery for you, and a swift return to un-skunked Eau de Cairn for Cassie.

I didn't know how serious a skunking can be if they get nailed underground. It would be a rare Cairn that would be underground in the first place and in any danger of being skunked while actually inside a varmint hole, but just on general principles, and for your reading pleasure, here is an excellent article about the extreme cases.

[dianer]

Well I'm loaded up with Benadryl and Cassie is much blonder but the stink isn't gone. I read the article you posted Brad and found it very interesting. The story about the black widow spider was good too. I bet I could find a dozen of those just in my yard alone right now. Things could be worse, the skunking could have happened the night before our vacation and we would have had to ride in the car with her eight hours! I had just convinced my mother to let Cassie stay at her house outside in the ex-pen when we visit Portland when this all happened, so I may have to call the kennel after all. Thanks for sending us their web info. They may not want a skunked dog either however so we won't say Brad sent us. Hopefully with more baths much of it will wear off in a week. She may look like a Westie by then. We found a dog friendly motel in Port Angeles and they let dogs on the ferry to B.C. so we really need a better smelling hound to enjoy this trip. I'm wishing now I'd done the aversion training with a stuffed skunk and not just the rubber snake. This is really unpleasant. Oh did I tell you that Petco was completely sold out of the solutions they sell? Apparently we are not the only ones around here with skunk in our noses. I'm going to check out the mythbusters website. I like that show and a friend said they did a deskunking episode.

[dianer]

Final update on the skunk episode. When I gave her the first bath I had her haltie on to keep her still and some odors seemed to have clung to the area just underneath it. The odor is faint now around the house and on her but if she gets wet at all it begins to reek strongly. I think a second bath is needed. The soap really takes the oil out of her skin and fur so I've not wanted to repeat the process but I think I must since we will probably get wet at the beach on our trip then pile in the car together which is close quarters for stinking dogs and humans. I never found information about what mythbusters concluded in their skunk episode. This dog is VERY BUSY. When I took her to the vets to get her weight the scale never settled down enough to tell. She is somewhere between 13 and 17 pounds. Yes she knows how to sit, down and stay but just gets too excited around people and other animals to recall what to do. I think she is not stupid however, because now she sits indoors and growls at the skunks from a distance.

[bradl]

Some earthodogging friends of ours are rockhounds and travel with their lakeland terriers. They were on an anniversary vacation and tent-camping in the middle of nowhere when one of the Lakies got skunked. They didn't know for sure what to do and had heard tomato juice might help. The only little store within miles and miles had no tomato juice, so they bought all the bottles of ketchup the little store had. They said that on the one hand, it worked better than they had any right to expect. On the other hand, they were TENT CAMPING WITH A SKUNKED DOG!