I didn’t realize how much these little buggers actually do smell until last night. I let the dogs out into our fenced in heart-of-the-city backyard at 10pm, not even thinking to check if there was another creature already out there. The dogs ran out and it took me a few minutes to realize what was going on. I saw a white stripe and realized to my horror that a HUGE skunk was out there, and the dogs were on him.
It was bad, not as bad as it could have been, but it was bad. BOTH Paddington and Corduroy got sprayed in the face. We rushed them into the tub to wipe the spray out of their eyes and noses, poor girls.
If you’ve never experienced a skunking, you may not know that skunk spray is a limey yellowey green colour – so that’s good for telling exactly where the dogs have been hit.
We first wiped off their faces with a washcloth then shampooed them with their regular dog shampoo. After we washed them with a solution of baking soda and dish soap and it worked quite well. All of the yellow gone. We thought we were home free until they started drying and we realized that they STILL smelled. Next we will venture out to buy and try a professionally formulated de-skunkifier. There are all sorts of other home remedies that we could try, tomato juice, coke, mouthwash etc, but at this point I want to use something I know will work.
You also may not know, as I did not know, that skunk smell permeates almost immediately into every corner and crevice of your home. Our house reeks, our clothes smell, the carpet, the couch, even my purse smells like skunk now. It’s pretty disgusting.
Skunk spray is a viscous oil. It adheres and penetrates well. It will stick to and penetrate
anything that it touches. It also evaporates and re‐adheres to other surfaces.
So now the spray in the face from the skunk has morphed into a full frontal attack on every good smelling part of our lives – a little dramatic, yes, but now I have to figure out how to not only deskunk my dog, but my house as well!
Skunks may be cute, but I really don’t like them at the moment…
–more to come after we try out the de-skunking products–
Update at 8:30pm
So I gave both dogs another bath. As soon as they got wet the skunk smell was back with a vengeance. We bought something called Skunks Etc from Natural Pet Foods. It didn’t really work to be honest – Corduroy still REEKS, but I am not sure I did it correctly. It says I don’t have to wash it out so I’ll keep spraying her with it and maybe give her another bath tomorrow where I pour it on her rather than just spray it. I thought it was a shampoo but it’s actually liquid – I would have preferred a shampoo I think
We also got a room spray called Pure Ayre and it works pretty well. I can also spray it on the dogs too.
Thanks for all of your comments and suggestions!
Update at 7:30am on Friday
Corduroy still smelled, not as bad as yesterday, but she still did. I sprayed some of the Skunks Etc. onto a brush and combed it into her. It seems to work a bit better that way because it’s getting down into the hairs. As of this morning, she still smelled, but less than last night. Another bath may be in order this weekend.
As for the house, the Pure Ayre has worked wonders. THIS product I highly recommend – and not just for skunk smell. It gets rid of cat urine, pet odours and more. The smell of the spray is a bit minty and it’s 100% natural which I love.
Update at 10:30pm on Monday September 28th – 5 days post-skunking
Corduroy still smells. Paddington has a hint of it but Corduroy really still does and whenever either of them come in contact with water, it seems to reactivate the smell for some reason. I tried brushing Corduroy with the Skunks Ect solution and it made it worse. So far I am not impressed with this product. I will give it one last try tomorrow in a full on bath but if it doesn’t work, I will be resorting to everyone’s suggestion of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish soap. Wish me luck!
Update at 10:00pm on Tuesday September 29th – 6 days post-skunking
Smell be gone!! I must say I should have just listened to my readers right off the bat and I would have saved our household from smelly skunk-dogs for the past week. The Skunk Off was useless – it may work on short fur dogs, but not my long haired dogs. Not in the least – I used the ENTIRE bottle on Corduroy and she still reeked. Luckily I had prepared for this and I had waiting ready to go a mixture of baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and apple scented dish soap. Again, I should have listened to my knowledgeable readers and tried this first – it worked IMMEDIATELY!! I avoided this solution because of the hydrogen peroxide, thinking it would get in their eyes, but the consistency of the mixture was thick like shampoo and I could very easily control where I applied it.
Presto chango no more stink!
Cordy seems to have a very slight odour still, but nothing in comparison to the past few days.
Thank you to everyone who has followed our debacles while trying to rid ourselves of smellyville, but this time I think we did it!
Resources:
http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/yhst-24675630992817/skunktips.pdf
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Liz Bradley is a dog lover who lives in Ottawa, Ontario with her husband,
13 Users Responded in " Things that go SKUNK in the night "
for the house, use frebreeze – we’ve had skunks out front and didn’t notice til the smell was inside… quickly closing the window then frebreeze works pretty well.
you can use it on the dogs too – but use a cloth and spray it on the cloth first and keep away from the eyes – we’ve used it for other horrible smells as a quick fix before a bath or when a bath wasn’t possible. bounce sheets also can help get rid of that doggie stink too (not sure about the skunk smell tho). 
This exact same situation happened to us in early September.. seriously, word for word! Once we got our little guy cleaned up, it took us 5 solid days of cleaning basically the entire house. Talk about an early spring cleaning. A lot was thrown out, thankfully nothing serious like furniture, but a lot of other things! Finding out things like sets of keys or a laptop bag still smelling after everything was cleaned is depressing but you’ll get over it
We even ended up renting the carpet cleaner from Home Depot, I highly recommend that. Best of luck, you’ll smile over this whole thing eventually..
that sucks…I understand though…my friends great dane got sprayed in the face – at 3AM – in the fenced in back yard. It reeks!!
I did a post on skunks not too long ago, lots of info on skunks in general as well as a recipe and how to clean them. A few of our clients have told us their dogs got sprayed in the spring, and we’re hearing about a lot of skunks around now since its fall.
If you’re interested, check it out on our blog. The baking soda/peroxide and soap combo works everytime and many of our clients who tried it said the same thing!
It’s pretty common for a dog to get sprayed in the eyes as the skunks generally aim towards their ‘attackers’ face. And apparently its crazy painful for them too, no surprise. If their eyes still look red, swollen or they are constantly rubbing them, might be a good idea to take them to the vet for a quick check.
Hope your pooches are much cleaner and in not too much pain!
WHY are you taking photos of him?!
dude!!!!
hahaha Angela, it’s a stock image.
I didn’t stop to grab the camera don’t worry.
Thanks for the info everyone!
Time heals all wounds and the smell with eventually go away. My guys get skunked in the backyard about twice a year and you’re right, everything stinks – even you because of washing it off of them! I use Skunk Off, an enzyme product you can get at pet stores. It works pretty well but it does take a few days.
They once got skunked the night before I was giving a three day training session. Needless to say everyone walked into the room and asked ‘does it smell like skunk in here???’ I had to fess up because they would have to endure me for the next 3 days. Everyone lived but oh what fun!!!!
Hi there,
I work at a little pet shop in the market …
There’s definitely other bottled formulas that work , but my best solution (and I have people who will swear by this – they visited the day after my chocolate lab got sprayed) – vinegar!
White vinegar , once the dog is all wet. I poured quite a bit from his neck right to his bum, couple of big glasses. rub it in, rinse it out. until you cant smell the skunk. the worst the vinegar is going to do is dry their skin a little bit…so I did a nice warm bath with puppy shampoo, or oatmeal/aloe (by Earthbath) and he was skunkless!
My dogs have never been skunked, but while hanging out in Mystic Beach in BC, Everest found a rotting, maggot infested sea lion carcass to roll in. Of course he had his backpack on too. Both the dog and the backpack were a disgusting mess.
*Luckily* my neighbour’s dog had just been skunked. Desperate, she came over to ask me for help. With no stores open, the only thing I could think of was to find a home remedy, which I found something online. Peroxide, baking soda and a touch of dish detergent. It worked like magic.
I remembered the formula and sent Matt off to buy the needed ingredients. I washed Everest (and the backpack) twice with the solution. The smell was GONE, which was a good thing since Everest slept in our tent that night.
1 quart peroxide, 1/4 cup baking soda, 2 tbsp dish soap
It works to remove the skunk and rotting carcass smell from your dog!
Skunk Off is the BEST thing out there. YOu get it at your vet. Works wonders!
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