I’ve read that there are some people who not only tolerate, but actually enjoy certain unpleasant scents, even something as potent as skunk spray. Others simply can’t stand the smell. I am probably somewhere in the middle on that one. A bit of odor wafting in the warm summer eve is a good reminder that wild animals still live surreptitiously among us. It is also a good reminder to close the dog door, all the better to avoid close encounters of the stripe-y kind. Up until 1994, I had never been close enough to a skunk to really form much of an opinion, one way or the other.
Our dog, Higgins (kind of a cross between a corgi and a beagle), was doing what he always did best – keeping our back yard safe from squirrels, cats, and the occasional startled raccoon family. It was fun to point out the living room picture window and exclaim in mock alarm, “Ghost Cat!,” which would send him charging out the back door and racing up the stone steps that led to the top of the yard behind our house on Via Herbosa in Ignacio. He got his exercise, we had a good laugh and all would be well.
That fateful night, however, there was a frantic barking in the unlit back yard. Not your usual “I’m just checking in” twilight woof, but a new voice that seemed to be announcing, “Captain! Captain! The alien ship has landed!” Just as I reached the sliding patio door and pulled back the screen, the barking was replaced by a shrill yelp, and Higgins shot toward me like a bullet, from the general direction of the fig tree, where intruding animals often sought refuge. Even before he got halfway, I caught a whiff of his new eau de cologne and instinctively slid the door shut. Then the wave hit.
If you have never been in close proximity to a sprayed animal, let me tell you, the stench is indescribable. Naturally, that won’t stop me from trying. The surprising part is that you might be expecting some sort of powerfully earthy, organic smell. But no. The smell of skunk spray close up is pure evil, pure chemical, like a pesticide factory exploding inside your sinuses. It immediately turns your stomach and causes an excruciating headache. And the worst part is that it simply won’t go away. It’s as tenacious as napalm.
My first reaction was that I wasn’t going to be able to handle this alone. I yelled for Beth, my wife at that time, to come help me. Shouting through the closed door, we decided to tackle this the old fashioned way, by bathing the dog with tomato juice. She ran to the kitchen to find some – but we were out. Instead, she found two cans of spicy Italian stewed tomatoes. That would have to do. I vigorously rubbed them into Higgins’ thankfully short coat and rinsed him off with the hose. Thank God it was a warm night, for both of us would spend the next hour soaking wet.
Unfortunately, the spicy Italian stewed tomatoes had not done the trick. I tried tomato ketchup. Nada. Then tomato paste. Nope. We were quickly running out of tomato products. Then I tried vinegar. Why vinegar? I have no idea; it just seemed like the next best thing on the menu. Higgins continued to reek, but at least I could detect faint notes of pasta primavera that gave my olfactory senses something else to appreciate.
Unwilling to sacrifice the rest of the pantry in what seemed to be a futile cause, Beth stripped down to her skivvies and we began bathing Higgins over and over again with a fragrant collection of shampoos. Predictably, they were having no effect. Or were they? Little by little, the stench became a smell, and then the smell became merely an unpleasant odor. We dried Higgins off with some old towels, threw those in the washer, and both jumped into the shower to make ourselves palatable.
Eight weeks. That’s how long the skunk smell lingered in our home. As the odor slowly abated, we kept a close watch over Higgins each evening. We raised our snouts and sniffed the air to detect if a skunk was in the neighborhood. At the slightest sign, Higgins was kept in and only taken out on a leash. Had he learned his lesson? We needn’t have worried – of course he hadn’t. After all, his doggy mandate was to maintain the security of our pathetic patch of grass and our few struggling tomato plants, no matter what the cost.
Predictably, just a couple of weeks after the smell had finally disappeared, Higgins was sprayed again, though this time not as thoroughly. It occurred just as Beth was returning home from a late nursing shift, after I had already turned in. The funny thing is that I didn’t hear about it until the next morning. Over breakfast, she told me how she had carried Higgins into the shower and scrubbed him until the wee hours of the morning. And, all the while, I slept on. I was dumbfounded. Normally, I was the light sleeper in the house, waking at any unusual noise coming from our baby Jessica’s room. This was totally out of character, but I had had simply no idea of what had transpired in the guest bathroom the previous night. Honest.
No comments:
Post a Comment