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ears of training retrievers had taught me to always carry a complete change of clothing in the truck in case I had to go in the water to remind a retriever that they actually did have to listen to me when they were swimming. I also always carry a couple of boxes of deskunking compound in my truck. Fifteen gallons of water and the contents of both boxes were not nearly enough to make things bearable for the gunner, the setter and her owner. It goes without saying that the dog had ridden to the test in the front seat of her owner’s Suburban so that meant that her owner would be enveloped in skunk all the way home and the vehicle would also be saturated with the stench. An attraction to skunks is not just a sporting dog problem. Hounds, terriers including the smallest in the terrier group, non-sporting dogs that are or were hunters and even the occasional toy breed that stems from a hunting background all suffer from “skunk fever.” I have a couple of friends with herding dogs who say their dogs also have this malady. So, since a skunking at some point is probably inevitable if you venture into the field often enough, the question is, how do you deal with the aftermath of a skunk encounter. The first thing is to forget the old tales you’ve heard about dousing the dog with tomato juice. All you get with that “remedy” is a dog that reeks of skunk and tomato juice. The appropriate first step is to flood the eyes
When an oily-coated breed like a Chesapeake has shaken themselves free of water from a particularly noxious swamp with most of the water landing on any hunters dumb enough to be within ten yards of the wet Chessie, there has been a tendency for the hunters who escaped the shower to pointedly tell the hapless recipients to “stand the hell downwind.” But this stink pales in comparison to a close encounter with a skunk.
92 Dog News
(the dog’s and yours if you have also been close enough to get hit in that area) immediately with plain clean water. This will remove as much of the spray as possible. Then it is time to tackle the stink. My personal choice for deskunking is a commercial preparation called Odormute but there are several anti-skunking preparations that are effective and you would be wise to carry one of these preparations in your vehicle whenever you and the dog go afield. You can also make your own using the following: A quart of fresh hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup of baking soda and a teaspoon of liquid soap. It is a good idea to use latex or plastic gloves when you deal with this potion. Combine the ingredients in an open container because it will explode if you do it in a sealed container. Wash the dog with warm water and then work the mixture well into the dog’s fur while it is still bubbling. Keep it away from the dog’s face and eyes. If the dog has been hit in the face, try using almost any over-the-counter douche product. Let the hydrogen peroxide/ baking soda/soap mixture stand for about ten minutes before you rinse it off making sure you don’t get any of it in the dog’s eyes. If necessary, and it frequently is, repeat the procedure with a fresh batch. The way this works, according to a chemist friend of mine, is that skunk spray is composed of low molecular weight thiol compounds called mercaptans. (Methyl mercaptan is what they put in natural gas so you can detect a gas leak.) One of these mercaptans, trans-2 butenyl thioacetate was discovered only when a chemical analysis was done of skunk spray. The hydrogen peroxide/baking soda mix was developed to remove mercaptans used in industry or as military weapons. The oxygen in the hydrogen peroxide releases the thiols that make skunk spray stink as it foams up which is why it has to be used immediately after you mix it and the detergent removes the oil in the spray that holds the scent to the dog’s fur. Did you get all that? Well, don’t feel bad if you didn’t. My chemist friend explained it but finally, after the third or fourth attempt, still seeing the blank look on my face, he resorted to writing it down with the admonition to copy what he wrote verbatim. However, all you need to know is that the mixture works. At least it does most of the time. But skunk oil was meant to be persistent providing a long-lasting memory of your skunky encounter. In fact, as long as three months after an ordinary skunk/dog interaction, despite multiple baths and the application of various skunkbe-gone products, the dog may still have a faint but potent skunk odor and this is especially true when they get wet. Of course, about the time you can not longer detect even the tiniest whiff of skunk is usually when your skunk-addicted dog will find another woods kitty to harass serving as a reminder that there is no such thing as a skunk-proofed dog. •