Forget what you remember about the
unrequited love affair between those old Looney Tunes characters Pepe le Pew
and Penelope Pussycat. I'm here to tell you that Skunks and Cats just
do NOT mix!
Last week will surely go down as being one
of the worst in 2016. Our lovely Smoke
got skunked in the early hours of Tuesday morning. I woke around 1am to that wretched skunk
smell and cursed the fact that those odor-full pests have made it across the
island to the west side. I closed the
bedroom window in hopes that the smell would soon dissipate, but strangely
enough it only got worse, and to the point that my throat was burning. For a minute I thought perhaps one had come
through the doggie door and had sprayed inside the house.
I noticed Smoke on the stool at the foot of
the bed and thought surely he couldn’t have been skunked. I smelled him but the room smelled so bad I couldn’t
tell if it was him or not. I tried to push him off the stool
but he wouldn’t budge, so I threw him out the room, but he wanted back in. I figured he had seen the skunk maybe and was afraid to go out. Sleep was no longer an option so I got up and
showered at 4:30am and went to work.
As it was, Chris called me later at work to let
me know it was indeed Smoke who had been skunked. Crikey! What to do.??
Working and commuting do not lend
themselves to accomplishing much in a small window of time in the
evenings. I managed to catch the vet
before he closed and bought some skunk odor remover which was very effective on
the furniture.
Smoke was banned from the
house, and the doggy access closed, and I handled laundry and spray clean chores for 2 nights
in a row.
I used the odor product on
smoke but only on the surface of his coat as I could not stomach the idea of trying to actually bathe
him. Spraying it on him just made him run out and hide. Poor boy! On Friday we let him back in, but still so
stinky. We felt bad for him since he is, after all, part of the family. I arranged to take him to the
groomer for a de-skunking bath on Sunday, and spent both Saturday and Sunday doing major fumigating, cleaning and laundry.
Our poor Smoke was not a happy camper during the bathing session.
He is now home and somewhat content. He smells lovely, though still a hint of skunk around his face and ears but hardly noticeable. He's lost his spark though. We do hope that he has been educated by experience, and will stay clear of skunks! I personally do not know if I could endure another episode like this past week.
