You've just been SKUNK'd!!!

Yes, there is a skunk involved in this blog. Yes, it was the most awful experience I have ever had. Yes, skunks are clearly a cause of global warming. No, I'm not going to tell you about the skunk till the end of the blog. This week was a memorable one. And it basically ended in me finding just one more reason not to want to live on a farm...

This week started out on a fairly tame note. Homer and Mervin went about their normal routines: go outside, eat, nap, go outside, go for a walk, eat, nap, repeat. Unbeknownced to Ellen this daily routine starts at 4:45AM. Needless to say she was perplexed and annoyed when Homervin wanted to go out at 5am. This is normally my responsibility; however, Monday through Wednesday I was down in Rolla, Missery recruiting for Emerson. Homer finally got a walk on Thursday. It was much needed. He was ready to come in though after surviving wind and 20deg weather and scary night deer.

I'm guessing that Homer was so upset that I was in Missery that he decided to rip apart his kennel bed. This was a brand new bed we just bought three weeks ago to replace his old chewed up bed. Looks like somebody is going to get towels next time. Mervin does the same thing when he gets a puffy new bed. Dogs must think beds are like twinkies: soft on the outside with a fluffy white center. That white stuff cannot taste good. Then again niether does poop, but somehow that gets recycled as well...

This weekend we decided to head down to Winterset, IA to celebrate El's birthday with her parents. The trials and tribulations started at around 5pm, Friday. Mervin and Homer seemed incredibly excited for a Friday. Its not like they had worked a job all week and were dying for FAW. While they were running around the house, I was packing up the dog accessories. Here is a list of items needed to take 2 dogs on a weekend out of town:

1. the kennels
2. 3 days worth of food for both dogs
3. the leashes
4. treats for each dog
5. towels for the dogs to sleep on
6. towels to clean up after Merv inevitably pukes in the car
7. a water bowl
8. a bag of bones
9. Mervin's interceptor and frontline
10. Mervin's travel kennel
11. Mervin's travel kennel pad
    

This does not seem like a lot on paper, but let me tell you, have you ever picked up a suitcase thinking it was going to be uber heavy and turns out to not be? This is like that, but opposite. In addition to the above items and the dogs we had to fit Ellen's and my bags into the Saturn. Fitting all of that into a Vue was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Seats had to come down, 2 and 3 doors needed to be open at the same time. I actually considered removing the spare tire for some extra room. But yet again, my master packing skills triumphed and we were on the road by 6pmish.

Now as many of you know, the Smith's live on farm just outside of Winterset. And out in the country there are many different kinds of animals. Cows, horses, chickens, other dogs and cats, you know, animals that bring some sort of benefit to the world. There are also animals that do not bring any benefit to the world. Enter the skunk. The skunk is the bane of my wife's existence. She has an oversensitive nose and complains about even the faintest of oders let alone a skunk within a 3 mi radius of our location. As we turned down the gravel road to the Smith farm, we passed a carcass resembling that of a skunk, then followed by the distinct fregrance of concentrated death. I should have known this would be a forshadowing of what would come to be a tragic weekend.

In making the final turn into the driveway of the Smith residence, a new live skunk passed in front of the car and ran behind the shed. I don't what the Smiths are doing these days, but they are attracting some very unsavory folk. Now normally smart dog owners would think, "hmm, dogs are not really smart enough to know that skunks are bad, we might want to put a leash on them." However, we are not smart dog owners. I just let Homer out of the car and he went tearing behind the shed after the skunk. We heard a growl, a wimper and then Homer came trotting back blowing toxic snot buggers and pawing at his face. Yes, Homer got sprayed in the face by a nasty skunk. He pretty much got painted on the front half of his body. All generosity towards dogs ends after that. We put Homer in the shed for the night. Be was perfectly content to chill in his kennel and tear up one of the Smith's old sleeping bags. That night we researched Anti-skunk remedies. Check out About.com for skunk stink removal. We decided on recipe 1 which contained the following ingredients:

• 3% hydrogen peroxide
• baking soda
• liquid soap
  

Saturday morning El and Linda went to town to run some errands and pick up much needed critical ingredients. In addition to the anti-skunk agents, they got a scrub brush, sponges, an abrasive pad and rubber gloves. I spent the morning running around with Homer hoping his mandog stink would overcome the skunk stench. It helped just enough to decrease his putrid aura from 10ft to about 3ft.

The sanitization of Homer was a two person task of epic proportions. Linda and I went to the shed armed with a batch of "Recipe 1", tools, 3 large containers of warm water and an assortment of old towels. We washed out an old kiddy pool left from the Smith kids toddlers. It was a color changer pool trading dirt brown for bright green. Next task was to get Homer into the pool. If you thought he was reluctant, you were wrong... He was incredibly stubburn about it. But once we got him in, he stood still and did just fine. Linda and I spent the next half hour scrubbing Homer from head to toe with the anti-skunk concoction. About.com warned us not to get the solution in his eyes. I have a distinct feeling that the remedy for getting Anti-skunk in your eyes is... to rub skunk juice in them. Maybe not. Anyway, Linda did a great job avoiding the eyes and scrubbig him hard while I had to deal with the posterior. After dousing with 3 large buckets of warm water, we felt confident enough to subject him to the final and ultimate test, Ellen's nose. If Ellen were a super hero, she would be Scent Woman. Yes, Ellen can smell out fear... from miles away. So after letting Ellen scrutinize nearly every bit of Homer's fur, we passed with a resounding, "better than before". Homer was more than ready to come in for the rest of the day.

The stink was not complete dissipated, but he was good enough to come in. Homer spent the next 24 hrs in the basement. By morning he was ready to grace us with his presence up stairs in the kitchen. I think Mervin was the most excited, showering homer with man kisses. Homer was ready to go back downstairs... So in the end, we learned that, the man that invents Anti-skunk in airsol form will be a very rich person.

And one last tidbit of information, I witnessed Mervin pee on himself this morning. I did not think this was possible till I thought about it and I would probably pee on myself as well if I pee'd like a dog. For future reference, do not pee like a dog.

YOU'VE BEEN SKUNK'd!!!!!!!!! B-dubs out.