Skunk

Skunks are not my favorite animals especially when they appear on my property in the daylight.  Skunks are nocturnal by nature and are home in bed when the sun rises.  Unless they are sick.  A sick skunk is always assumed to have rabies.  And we live in "rabies central" for our county.  All this leads to the story of my morning.

Cash and I stepped out the door about 8:30 this morning for our walk.  We walk around the interior perimeter of my property.  Two circuits takes about 30 minutes which is my goal for walking each day.  It gives me a chance to check on all the animals without them getting all excited because I have food in my hands.  We turned left out the door and walked around the fruit trees, across the front of the property, up the length of the property past the ponies, across the top of the property past the llamas and alpacas and were headed down to the barn.  We came to a corner of the pasture and turned left.... and found a small skunk sitting in the sun.  Not a good sign.  Both the dog and I were startled.  I stopped in my tracks but the dog stuck out his nose to further investigate the small creature.  He wasn't chasing just investigating.  He stuck his nose into what the skunk obviously decided was it's own personal space and got sprayed.  It happened in a heartbeat.  Fortunately, it was a small skunk and didn't have much obnoxious horrible musk to spread around.

I ran to the house to get Ron and he grabbed the shotgun.  Cash is throwing himself on the ground through the rest of this trying to wipe the smell off his face.  The skunk wasn't as wobbly as the last skunk we saw out in the daylight but this one wasn't doing very well.  By the time Ron got to the pasture the skunk had only managed to move about 30 feet.  He had moved into the pasture with the llamas and alpacas.  I was concerned that the guard llamas were jump into action and try to move it away with their noses but they seemed content to let the little skunk move off on his own.  Ron dispatched the skunk in a single shot and we disposed of his body.  Now to Cash.

I tied Cash to the railing of my back deck and washed him with the best concoction I could come up with.  Hydrogen peroxide mixed with baking soda and Dawn dish washing liquid.  After the last time the dog got sprayed I bought some expensive "skunk smell remover" which I couldn't find this morning.  I'm sure I'll run across it on a nice sunny non-skunk smell morning.  Cash wasn't really happy with the bath but I was delighted.  He is almost completely skunk smell free and also fluffy and clean.

I'm sure I had something else planned to do this morning but - find skunk, kill skunk, wash dog - took up my morning.