Saucing the Dogs (said with a Julia Child accent)

Back in October, a terrible, no-good thing happened.  With the thousands of empty acres surrounding our house, a skunk decided to wander onto the four acres that we call our backyard.  The four acres where our dogs run.  The four acres where they feel they protect us from any intruders.  The four acres that they will defend with their lives.

Funny thing?  As tough as our dogs are, the skunk won.

Oh yes, you know what that means.

We smelled the stench from inside our house (closed windows and doors) and rushed to let the dogs in. When they came in, we knew it was too late, and we threw the three stinky ones back outside.

We waited three days, hoping the skench would disappear (this is John's coined phrase for the skunk stench).  No such luck.

We believed the wives' tale about tomato juice.  Armed with several bottles of it, we headed out.

Here's Dash, the dog who can never stop licking anything.
We noticed that despite being doused with the stuff, he was finding it quite the tasty experience!

There's nothing wrong with a little extra iron, right?

I think he was enjoying this FAR too much!

Next came Pearl.  Because we didn't rinse the tomato juice off,
she remained a lovely pink color for several weeks afterwards.

They seriously looked like a mess!

Chief, feeling rather left out, got the dregs of the bottle.

It took a couple of months for the smell to completely disappate.  I'm not sure who was more miserable--us, or the dogs.

We figured that was the end, and we were glad for that.

Little did we know (until two days ago) that the skunk had taken up residence under our deck.  In fact, I find it rather unbelievable that it took almost five months for our dogs to have another encounter with him.

This time though, he wasn't so lucky.

It was almost like deja vu.  It was late at night, John and I were watching TV, and the smell permeated the walls and windows.  Again, we ran out, hoping to save the dogs.

When the dogs came in, it looked as though they had been in a rain shower.  They were completely soaked, but not with water.

They were soaked with skunk juice!

The skench was so strong that it didn't smell like it does out in the open (like when a skunk is hit on the road)--it had an industrial smell to it.  Crazy!

Too, there was blood on Roxy's mouth.

Could it get any worse?  Of course it could...

There was a freak blizzard happening outside.

We knew we couldn't put the dogs back outside, because most likely, the skunk was still there, dead or alive.  We couldn't leave them inside either.

So, we put them in the front yard for the night (I knew my hydrangea bush would be chewed to a stump in the morning).

John woke up super early, and headed out back to find the skunk--he knew the dogs would go right to it, so he took them with him.  Sure enough, it was right outside the fence, hard as a rock, dead.  John had to go to work (the girls were home because school was cancelled), so he shoveled up the dead skunk, and left the dogs out back.

When I woke up a couple hours later, I looked outside in the snowstorm.  I have never seen such miserable animals.  They were soaking wet from the snow, shivering, and you can only imagine how their sensitive noses were reacting to the skench that clung to them.

We knew we needed to do something--no waiting around as we did in the fall.  The weather was going to take them out.

John came home from work with a guaranteed remedy.  Some crazy concoction of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide.

The problem?  It was still snowing outside.  A lot.  Where the heck could we wash them?  When John suggested the tub upstairs, I nixed that idea before it was completely out of his mouth.  No way was I bringing the skench upstairs.  I already had my windows open in 18 degree weather!

Lucky for us, we have a spigot inside our garage.  And lucky for Glo and me, we had already taken our showers for the day.

Johannah wasn't so lucky.  

She was actually in the shower when I told her to turn off the water and get out--she was going to help Daddy "sauce the dogs".  She tried every excuse not to get out--she had shampoo in her hair, for goodness sake--but it was no use.  She was going to be the skench removal assistant.

It. Was. Freezing. In. The. Garage.

However, there was nothing to be done.  We hooked up the hose, I armed myself with my camera, Hannie threw on her pajamas and rain boots, and we took the dogs out.

It was miserable, but glory be, it worked!  

That night, we could bring the dogs inside...and still breathe.  It's not perfect.  Roxy especially still has an "odor" about her. Thankfully, though, the skunk is dead, because I'm not sure how much more of this we can take.

As hilarious as it is in pictures (and I can't help laughing when it's happening), we're very much tired of saucing the dogs.