Skunked!

At first, I was having quite a pleasant evening: watching my mom's house and my dog, tending the wood stove, and reading the NY Times. I even made myself what may perhaps be the most elegant dish I have ever prepared: quinoa and chickpea pilaf with pomegranate sprinkled on top. I was about ready to call it a night so I let Shiloh outside to go to the bathroom one final time. She made her usual rounds, peeing by the birdfeeder than exploring by the garden. Then, suddenly, she took off towards the neighbor's yard. As I called after her, the faintest wiff of skunk filled the air. The connection didn't quite occur to me yet, but as I donned my galoshes to follow her, and as the skunk smell grew stronger, I admit the thought that Shiloh had been skunked did cross my mind. It definately didn't prepare me for what I was about to experience, though. As Shiloh stumbled back toward the light by the porch (I lated discovered she was sprayed directly in the face/eyes and so was probably temporarily blinded), the familiar skunk smell morphed into something that is frankly hard to describe. When you pass an area where a skunk has sprayed, the smell is fairly pungent and almost sour. When you stick your face in a dog that has been sprayed by a skunk at close range (as I stupidly did to 'check' if Shiloh had been sprayed), the smell doesn't even resemble that of a skunk. In fact, if it wasn't so overwhelming and the only feasible option, I would have sworn she was sprayed by something other than a skunk. That's not to say it wasn't a bad smell. It was as if I had taken a deep breath in a plastic bag filled with rotting fruit. Really rotting fruit. And the smell permeated everything. My clothes, my nose, the porch. I found myself snorting uncontrollably to try and rid my nose of the smell (Shiloh, incidentally was trying to do something similar and sneezing continuously). I sort of blanked on what to do (besides douse her in tomato sauce, which presented two problems, 1) we don't have tomato sauce, and 2) we don't have a bathtub so the tomato juice would soon be all over the bathroom walls). So, I did the only reasonable thing to do and called my mom to ask her what I should do. She, of course, looked it up on the internet, which I could have done myself since my computer was already up and running, but the sticky smell in my nose was clouding my judgement. According to our internet sources, tomato juice is NOT effective, and most sources recommended a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and soap. I couldn't find enough hydrogen peroxide, so I tried vinegar, baking soda, and soap, but that didn't seem to help very much (my poor dog, at this point, is chattering her teeth because the vinegar was in the un-heated pantry). I was debating how I was going to get to the store without causing my shivering, disoriented dog to have a stress-induced heart attack when I found some hidden stores of hydrogen peroxide. I applied it liberally, twice, waiting 5-10 minutes before rinsing, and it seemed to help. Shiloh's face ended up pretty red, though, which I am not sure whether it's from the cleaning solution (which was making my even hands tingle) or because of the skunk juice. So, I was feeling pretty proud of myself for getting rid of the skunk smell on the dog, and I started to clean up the house and move all of her bedding so that if there was some residual skunk smell she wouldn't get it all over the bedding. In the course of this process, I went down to the basement to get an old blanket for her. When I came back upstairs, to my dismay, the house smelled like skunk. So, I am sitting here with the windows open and fans blowing and the wood stove as hot as it can get since tonight is supposed to be the warmest night over the next week. Here's hoping tomorrow morning the house won't smell like skunk anymore!