Wilbur Gilbert got himself skunked, Sunday night. Alas.
Of the five dogs who have lived in this house with us, he is the ONLY one to ever get skunked, and this is his third time! (We live in a 50-year-old suburban neighborhood. There is a woodsy ravine two blocks from our house, and a large park, also with woods, about a quarter mile in the other direction. I don't know if the skunks live right here, or if they travel......)
Wilbur is one of the brighter dogs we've had, but this particular issue seems to do him in..... Perhaps it's his houndy heritage....... Sigh.
The last two times weren't too bad. I'm told that baby skunks don't smell as bad as adults, so maybe the first two times were babies. This time is Bad. It seems that I can smell skunk all over the house (except the kitchen, which currently has a bouquet of peonies). It's worst in the bathtub where Bert was drenched in Nature's Miracle skunk remover, and then bathed.
He doesn't smell too bad, now, considering, but there are clearly some parts of him that I didn't soak down as thoroughly as necessary in the skunk-off. His corgi brother managed to get a little on him, but Buzz wasn't just *broadcasting* stink the way Burt was.
Sigh.
There are lots of stinks at the zoo, too, but since they don't come home and roost in my bathtub, I don't mind them at all. Here is one of the first critters we saw at the zoo on Sunday. I had never seen (or didn't notice, or forgot....) how a seal's hind flippers spread out, making a *big* webbed foot to push the water.
Modern zoos (with lots of plexiglas, huge water tanks, and underwater viewing spots) let us see things an ordinary person never could see in the wild. We can be closer to the animals, and we can see from viewpoints we could never take in the wild.
There are several seals in this tank. On Sunday, they were swimming back and forth. Most of them were belly up (yes, really, back and forth, belly up, who knows), but this big guy(?) was right-side up.
2 comments:
Hi Vicki,thank you for your comments on my blog about Daisy,I am sorry to hear that one of your dogs is dealing with something similar,but what I want to reassure you is that with good vetinary care Daisys problem was controlled for quite a long time,she was comfortable and in no pain(well as far as we could tell)and in the end it was peaceful,I hope the same applies to your dog,it is awful,but you may have your lovely pet for a while longer I hope,best wishes and thank you again.xx
Thank you, Gena, for the kind and encouraging words. We are hoping for the best.
As for Wilbur's misdeeds -- the skunk spray seems to be quite noxious, in other ways than just stink. A skunked dog (in my limited experience) may sit and quiver, slobbering ropes of drool, on the day of the spraying, and may not feel all that good the next day. I have heard that some dogs need veterinary care as a result of a skunking......
Of course, Burt probably blames feeling so crummy on the bath, rather than on his impetuous charge at the skunk...............
He is still reluctant to go off the back step at night. I want him to remember that he should leave the "stripe kitties" alone, but I also want him to get himself out into the grass to do his business.....
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