Skunk Fail

So my dog, Jake, is 14 years old....which is 98 in human years ;)

He has a hard time hearing and seeing, and tends to do what we in the medical field call "sun downing". That's when the patients with Dementia and Alzheimer's tend to wander around anxiously after the sun goes down. Well, Jake tends to sundown most nights somewhere between 1130pm and 1am. So, I had just dosed off about 1130pm and he starts.... as usual, I got up and let him out. Maddie, his partner in crime, went with him. Next thing you know, they are at the back door wanting to come in. I'm thinking "yeah, I don't have to sleep on
the couch for the next hour waiting for them to come back in".

Oh, in case you didn't know (but probably do since the 2 people that read my blog actually know me fairly well), we live on 10 acres, in the woods, in a rural area outside of Richmond, Virginia.

So, the dogs are at the back door, which is weird because I let them out the front door. I let them in and then this awful smell hits me! I thought at first my house was burning down from a chemical fire. It smelled like sulfur mixed with burning rubber and the smell of urine that was super concentrated and half dried up.....uuuccckkkk! I thought there must be some sort of chemical fire under the house... the previous owners left a meth lab there and the stuff ignited.... or my husband left the bonfire of twigs burning and now the cars were engulfed in flames.... but no, it was the dogs!!

Then it occurred to me, they had been skunked!!!! Where did the skunk come from, and is this some sort of sick joke? The smell permeated through the house, it was so bad that we had to sleep with the doors shut and blankets against the cracks to keep it out of the room. That was the worst smell I have ever smelt (is that a word?).

So my goal now is to de-skunk them with some concoction of peroxide, baking soda and dish detergent! Sounds like a chemistry experiment.... we'll see what happens.

That's Jake at the top , and that's Maddie in the blanket with Jessi, BEFORE the skunk fail.