Ascent Of A Dog

Jinx got skunked last night.

I went out with him a bit before sundown for a post-supper walk. He left the road and loped across one of his favorite pastures, and I busied myself taking some photos and enjoying the cool breeze while awaiting his return.

He was gone a few minutes longer than usual and when he returned, he threw himself to the ground at my feet and wallered around in the grass, apparently just enjoying himself. Then we turned for home.

As soon as we walked in and Jinx walked past my wife, she cried out, “He’s been skunked!”

I stood there gaping at her. I hadn’t smelled anything when he had returned to me, but two points for my defense: first, there was a good breeze blowing, so perhaps the dog was downwind of me. And second, my sense of smell and sense of taste have been somewhat impaired in recent weeks. I know, I know….covidcovidcovidcovidcovidcovidcovidCOVID! In any case, Mrs. Orr’s senses are all in superb working order, and she herded Jinx out the back door so we could confab about what to do.

She remembered a recipe for de-skunking a dog, and we mixed up a batch. It consists of two quarts hydrogen peroxide, one cup of baking soda, and a tablespoon of Dawn dish soap. It was dark outside by this time, so I decided to bathe Jinx in my bathroom. I removed rugs from the floor, got everything in place, then called him inside. I had blocked off every avenue of escape and created a sort of chute to channel him from the back door directly to the bathroom, which worked very well. Once inside the bathroom, he knew the jig was up, especially when I closed the door behind me. I lifted the dog, skunk-stink and spots and all, into the tub and held onto his collar while starting the water. When it was lukewarm, I activated the shower and wet him down.

If you’ve ever watched or participated in rodeo events, you have a good mental picture of how this particular deal went down. Jinx bucked and scrambled and fought me when I started hosing him down with the shower sprayer, but when I poured the de-skunking shampoo all over him, the fun really began. I was trying to hold the dog still so that the shampoo mix could soak into his fur. Jinx began whimpering and crying out, and then he got serious about attempting to exit the bathtub. It was at that moment that I discovered just how powerful he is, especially his hind legs. I weigh about two hundred pounds and am for my age quite strong. Jinx weighs about 45 pounds, and he threw me around like one of his chew toys. At one point in the festivities, his lunging dragged me across the rim of the tub and then slammed me down onto it, my hip and ribs catching the force of the blow, and it knocked the wind out of me. I managed to hold onto the plunging animal, and from my new position on my knees, managed enough leverage to pull him down by his collar, scrub the living eff out of his fur — forgive my Anglo-Saxon, do have a biscuit — and then start rinsing him down. I was trying mightily not to get any of the mixture into his eyes because of the peroxide, and I think I was mostly successful.

The instant I got the last of the lather rinsed off him, I shut off the water and let go of him. Jinx leaped over me and landed on the floor, legs skittering out from under him, and began shaking the water out of his fur. All over everything. I grabbed the beach towel I had staged earlier and rubbed him down as vigorously as I could. He began calming down a bit and stopped whimpering at that point. As soon as I had him dry, I opened the bathroom door and he made his escape in the direction of Mrs. Orr’s voice. Still on my knees, I dried the floor with the towel and began wiping everything down.

When I finally made it out to the family room, Jinx was licking his fur and no worse for wear and tear…until he saw me. Then he bolted into the office and stayed there, refusing to let me come near him. Can’t say I blamed him. My wife took him and Dixee outside in the back yard before bed time and he did fine with her, but he was wary of me until this morning, at which time all seems to have been forgiven.

I can report that the de-skunking shampoo worked very well. The only skunky scent we can detect when putting our noses directly onto his fur is on the top of Jinx’s head, and that’s because I didn’t pour any of the solution directly onto his head for fear of harming his eyes. I put a bit of industrial strength deodorizer on a cloth and wiped his head with it this morning, and it seems to have helped quite a bit.

So Jinx is largely de-stunk, and I am battered and sore and crippling around like an octogenarian. Monkeys are generally the only animals to which I feel an overt hostility, but right now, I could cheerfully eliminate every skunk in this state without a pang of guilt.

So here we are.

~ S.K. Orr