THE WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION IS.......

I planned to write about the ducks and chickens this week, as the spring hormones are kicking in; BUT Sarah decided she needed the spot light. 

Sarah is the last dog we rescued.  She is a highly intelligent dog. That said, she is dumber than a post!  Let me explain.  Sarah is smart and learns quickly, but when it comes to common sense...she is dumb as a rock. I am sure you may know people like this. I know I do.  These people are highly educated and very into the intellect, but they lack common sense. If it is not in a book, then they are in trouble. Now I am not knocking education. I have a degree myself. I am just pointing out that you need the balance of education and common sense. Sadly Sarah lacks the common sense part.  Here are a couple of pictures of her. 

 In all fairness, she is still a bit of a pup.  We rescued her when she was 6 months old. She was in very bad shape and very ill.  A great deal of medicine and time got her healthy.  At this writing she is roughly 2 years old.  Now dogs do not really settle down until they hit their 3rd birthday.  I am patiently, more like white knuckling it, waiting for her settling down. Until then, she will continue to be my most challenging child. 

To give you a good example of her lack of sense, she was bitten by copper head snakes 3 times last spring. Yes, you read that right, 3 times, 3 different snakes.  The first was in March. The snakes do not usually come out until mid April, but with the temperatures already in the 80's the ground was warm enough for snake season.  One month later, to the day, she played with another Copper head snake and was bitten again....Three weeks after that bite, to the day, she did it again!!!  Needless to say, I was not sure if this dog would live through the spring, let alone to her first birthday!

 You are asking yourself what does this have to do with the title of this blog? Good question.  Now that you have the back story on Sarah, I can now tell you the meaning of the title of this blog.

Sarah is not a barking dog. She likes to sit at the fence every night and watch all the critters come and go. She is quite fascinated by them.  Actually she is a dog, she wants to catch them.  We have a very large fenced enclosed area for the dogs.

Last night, Sarah was out doing her thing, watching critters through the fence. Around 9:30P the dogs in the house began getting agitated. One went to the kitchen door and was growling. I figured there was a critter out there eating. I go check......WHAT!? What is Sarah doing outside the kitchen door???? How did she get out!?!

Here is my biggest mistake. I let her in through the kitchen door. Why? because she is not to be out there with all the critters running around. As she runs past me, my eyes begin to sting and burn, my nose hairs all curl up screaming and fall out of my nose dying, my mouth starts salivating.  Can you guess why?  If you guessed skunk, you win. 

Sarah meet a skunk. Not Pepe Le Pew or Flower, but a skunk with power!

How did she meet the skunk, you ask? She jumped the 5 foot high fence and approached the skunk up close and personally.  Now skunks really do not want to spray, really they don't. The reason is they are completely defenseless for 90 seconds. This may not sound like a long time, but in the wild for a skunk it could mean their death.  

Since we recused a baby skunk; yes, I said it, we did it.  We learned a great deal about skunks. We actually like them and try to educate people as often as we can.  We put cat food out for them to keep them around. WHY? you ask. Simple; they kill snakes, rodents and bugs.  I had forgotten about their snake killing ability last spring, but by summer I was putting cat food out for them. Here is a picture of the baby skunk we rescued. Yes, we named him Flower. We cared for him for nearly 3 weeks, until the wildlife rehabber could take him. 

 Here is another picture of him warning off Molly, our dear old Lab. 

 Notice the tail is straight up and he is in warning mode. Poor old Molly, she would see him and high tail it out of his way. Molly weighed 80 some pounds. Flower, maybe 2 pounds. 

The skunk will put his/her tail straight up. They will slap their front paws on the ground and hiss, growl, yell at you. They will lunge forward doing this slapping of paws then back up. They want you to go away! They will do this numerous times, giving you the opportunity to get away. Finally, when they feel they are threatened they will turn and spray. I believe I read that the spray can go up to 30 feet. 

I believe this is how it went with Sarah. As they say here in the south, I was not holding the light, which means; I wasn't there.  This is my imagination working again.  Sarah sitting by the fence watching the skunks come and go. Finally she decides to get a closer view. She jumps the fence, hurting her hip in the process, approaches the little skunk. The skunk is warning her off. Sarah pays no attention and continues her approach. The skunk realizing this is a very threatening situation turns and fires, hitting Sarah square in the eyes, nose and mouth. Sarah yelps and heads for the door.  Now our other dogs heard this transaction and began to fuss. So back to opening the door to let Sarah in the house. 

As I stated before, she was hit in the eyes, nose and mouth. She came flying into the house like someone being chased.  After my initial shock, I told my husband to go out and check the fence line for holes and make sure the gate was not open and mostly make sure there are no skunk in the enclosure. Off he went in a flash....cannot imagine why, can you? 

Sarah is hurting. She is coughing, salivating and crying. She is rubbing her face on the kitchen floor, on me, then runs to the couch and rubs her face in each corner, then the love seat, the two chairs and by that time I finally get a hold of her and get her out the back door! The other dogs go outside to. To breathe I am sure.

Now in emergencies I am like my mom. I become very calm and assess the situation quickly then go into action, doing whatever needs to be done. My husband on the other hand who is always methodical, never in a hurry was trying to hurry and help, but was actually more in the way than helpful. He tried, but when he hurries he becomes this bumbling, stumbling guy.  

The things that I would normally use on skunk spray I could not because it was in her eyes.  I ask my husband to get the baby shampoo out of the Rubber maid cabinet we have for the dogs and cats medicines and stuff. I tell him exactly where it is, while I go get clothes. With clothes in hand, I hear all these drawers opening and closing...he can't find it. I walk in open the drawer and grab the shampoo. I put some on the cloth and head out the door to help Sarah. 

We have this big tub out back filled with water for the dogs to play in. Sarah was standing in the water trying to drown herself to get the stink off.  I reach out to grab hold of her and call her, when she raises up and shakes off the water, which I get a mouth full and face full of skunk stink.  I do not scream or yell or get mad, I just swallow and keep moving forward. As my dad always told us when we got hurt, "just shake it off. It isn't that bad." "Walk it off." I did just that.

Reminds me of a mother with a sick child, who comes to the mother and says, "mom, I don't feel....throws up on the mom. Moms just deal with it. Dad's more often than not leave the room gagging.

I manage to get some shampoo on Sarah's face and she keeps sticking her head under water.  She comes back into the house coughing and salivating and blinking and runs in circles. I take her back out. She hits the tub of water again, I add more shampoo and hold her the best I can and wash her face. We did this three times and finally got the sting out of her eyes. She ran over to the yard where they have a hole dug. She plants her face in the hole and rubs the dirt all over her face. 

Meanwhile back in the house, my husband turns on the house fan. It is a large fan in the attic that you can use to cool the attic, move smoke or skunk smell up into the attic.  One thing to remember before turning this on, you need to make sure the draft is closed on the fireplace, otherwise ash gets sucked up too from the draft being open. Well, you guessed it. He turns on the house fan, then I hear him say, "Oh Man!"  He forgot he had the insulation panels over the fan and it was not pulling as much air and yes, the ashes were leaving the fireplace. My hands were full with Sarah.  All I can do was sigh a heavy sigh, shake my head and let him work it out. Remember the advise:  "Shake it off."

When we finally come in, my husband is walking around the house spraying Febreeze. There is not enough Febreeze on the planet to kill skunk stink. In fact I think it makes the smell worse. He is having trouble with the smell. I am covered in skunk stink, I got a mouth full of skunk stink, which is all I can taste, all I can smell is skunk stink, I am soaked from the bath the dog gave me of skunk stink, the dog has rubbed up against me more times than not, you would think I ran into the skunk and my husband is having trouble with the smell.......really?

Finally got the sting out of her eyes and most of the taste out of her mouth. I decide to give her a tranquilizer to calm her down. I also gave her an anti-inflammatory for her hip.  She finds a dog pillow and crashes.  I look around and realize the remaining 6 dogs are all sitting around me, as far away from Sarah as they can. 

Here is the kicker. Yesterday it was nearly 80 degrees here! Beautiful day. We gave all 7 dogs a nice bath. They looked so good and smelled so good. But no, Sarah had to go play with a skunk that night. Baths again today. 

After putting the dogs to bed last night, I had to mop the kitchen floor where Sarah rolled to get the smell off her, sprayed the furniture with cleaner, which oh mercy brought out the smell even stronger, vacuumed everything, collected everything, including my clothes, to wash in all the strongest stuff I have. I ended up washing my hands and arms in peroxide. We left windows opened, it was 39 degrees last night. Left on all the ceiling fans. The house still smells of skunk and will until it finally fades out.

 Sarah, today is still rolling and rubbing her face in the grass trying to get the smell off her.  I am trying a product called Pure Citrus. It has no harmful chemicals and is suppose to clear the air. I will let you know. I still smell skunk, the taste is still there but not as bad. 

Here are a couple of pictures of Sarah last night after her last bath and roll in the dirt. 

 She is standing on the fireplace hearth.

As the title says, the winner and still champion is...the skunk. You don't mess with the skunk. You will always lose.  Now the question is this: Will Sarah learn from this and leave the skunks alone, or will she learn like she did with the snakes????  Time will tell. 

Update: the Pure Citrus is actually helping. Here is their website: http://bluemagicusa.com/index.php/blue_magic/category/32/ 
I sprayed it around the house and the nice orange smell is so much better. 

I mentioned to my husband in passing last night that we will now have skunk smell on us. He thought he should cancel his doctor appt today, but he did not. He mentioned to the doctor what happened and the doctor said he could smell the skunk a bit on my husband. He came home a bit on the grumpy side.  This too shall pass.