Skunk! Need answer quick?

So our dog just go into something. Came inside from the back yard not happy and he smells, like really bad. The whole house smells really bad. We have all the windows open but this shit is powerful. Our dog was frothing at the mouth and obviously is not enjoying life.

So what’s the question? The question is is this what a skunk smells like? It does not smell like a dead skunk at thee side of the road, it smells more chemical. Like there is some sulfur in there, a bit like gasoline. Not gasoline, but not dead skunk on the side of the road.

My wife just took him to the vet on the off chance that he ate something weird like a can of gasoline. I searched our land and found nothing industrial, though I did find two locations where the smell is overpowering. Is this a skunk?

Last question(s): how do we get rid of the smell? I have all the windows open even though it is only 30 degrees out. How do I get it off the dog? Help!

Are your dog’s vaccinations up-to-date?

Yes.

So the vet confirmed it was a skunk, no question. Told us that it will get worse over time. Recommended dilute vinegar baths. I have heard about tomato juice before, I am thinking of trying it also. Any other remedies? Advice? This stuff is weapons grade. Evolution is the bomb!

Your dog has been skunked. There is a way to get most of the stink off. A good description is here. You’ll need 3% hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, and baking soda. The Humane Society Page I linked to provides step by step instructions. Basically, you’ll be washing the dog in the mixture you created. You’ll want to work it in thoroughly and get enough soap in the mixture to allow for thorough distribution throughout the dog’s coat. Really make sure you’ve worked the mixture throughout your dog’s coat.

Mythbusters did a show on the different methods people recommend for skunk removal. This is their favorite method as well.

My dog used to get sprayed several times a year. I can attest to the effectiveness of this method.

We did a diluted vinegar bath and are currently doing the peroxide/dish soap/baking soda with a shampooing between the different treatments. May do it twice. Jeeez

Use ‘dawn’ dish liquid. But be prepared you will have this smell for awhile. The dog needs to be away from sofas, carpets, bed linens. The smell will permeate everything in you house. We have to throw draperies out. I finally had the dog shaved to the skin and kept washing her with vinegar. Finally it seemed to dissipate, 4 mos. go by, we go on vacation, the dog is boarded. We come home and the house still smells, we had gotten used to it. We did the whole clean up again could not shake the odor. Removed carpeting, and changed air cond. filters. Finally it smelled ok. I swear every now and then I still smell it, 5 years later.

Scary story. Wow. My house smells like WWI mixed with ass.

The baking soda / peroxide / dish soap solution seems to have done a pretty good job on the dog. I have mopped the floors in our house (all hardwood where the dog has been - bedrooms are carpeted but he never got there) with a half and half vinegar solution with mixed results. Doing it again and then switching to Murphy’s. Really smells like WWI wrapped in ass. That is one damn good chemical defense; I am really impressed. Makes we wonder about Sunny Daze’s dog; several times a year? Did the dog have a head injury or something?

I once washed a dog with tomato juice. This was recommended by my next door neighbor, a woman who had a bunch of kids and got commodities, including a giant can of tomato juice that she donated to me for the purpose.

It may have helped. It didn’t help that much. They key here is that if you wash a dog in tomato juice you have to wash the dog again, to get the tomato juice out, and she still smelled a little skunky. Like, for the rest of her life.

This same dog also got porcupined. Twice.

Regarding my dog, it was a combination of things. First up, skunks are stupid. They lead with their strongest offense, the old stink bomberoo. Sure, one or two of their number may have to die to make an impression, but usually, once the impression is made, the others have only to indicate that they’re going to let fly in order to pass freely. It does not occur to a skunk that a dog may take his territorial prerogatives seriously.

Second, my dog wasn’t having any uninvited animals on our land. He was a 100 lb Akita, who ran around with my other dogs, a 100 lb Rottie, and a 70 GSD mix. Squirrels, deer, raccoons, possums, moles, a few birds, and skunks. If it came onto our land, they chased it off. If they caught it, they killed it and brought me the body. Thanks? Spring comes along, and the young and stupid skunks start passing through and Kubla gets sprayed. He killed the skunk anyway, but now it was personal. Any mother-f-king skunk that came through was going to get killed. It was a mission. Usually, after he’d killed 3-4, the skunks would start avoiding our place for the season, but not always. He was a black faced dog, but he’d finish every summer with his fur bleached almost yellow from the peroxide.

The first time he got sprayed the smell was unreal. I swore up and down that it could not be skunk. The full on impact at close range results in something far different than the unpleasant whiffs you get driving past Pepe road kill. It’s eye watering and nauseating. I’ll also note that our other 2 dogs got sprayed the first time. After that, they were content to watch and cheer their buddy on from the sidelines. Get’em Kubla! :rolleyes:

ETA: WWI wrapped in ass is a good description.

If your dog has lots of hair get it clipped short and do the vinegar baking soda dish liquid paste several times. And hard floors use bleach. Wood floors use vinegar/ liquid fabric softener mix. Cover your furniture if dog gets on them. Good luck!

Yep, as your vet already confirmed, the direct close-up smell of a dog that’s been skunked doesn’t smell exactly like skunk – it’s an overwhelming smell that seems to have tinges of petroleum, sort of a mix of skunk and gasoline that may be confusing as to what it actually is. But it’s skunk!

When my dog got skunked (a large, thick-furred Bernese Mountain Dog!) I dealt with it in a multi-step fashion. Step 1 was a purpose-made commercial anti-skunk detergent. This was years ago so I don’t remember the brand or even the choices I looked at, but what I do recall is that some seemed safer and more promising than others and whatever I picked seemed to work pretty well. You use it like dog shampoo.

Step 2 was a thorough washing with normal dog shampoo to get off the anti-skunk chemicals and basically give him a second thorough wash.

That pretty much cleared it up. You’re not supposed to shampoo a dog very often as I believe it’s not good for their fur but the shampooing did make his thick fur lovely and soft. That lovely doggie smell when you stick your face in the top of his furry head was not the same for a while – it was sort of a faint aura of mixed smells from the treatments and faint residual skunk – but in a few weeks he was totally back to normal. :slight_smile:

We used to have a big dog named Scooby who was the most loving dog I’ve ever seen, but was also one of the most stupid dogs I’ve ever seen. He literally got lost getting out of our mini-van, on more than one occasion (we’d open the side door and he’d get confused and go into the front seat, and then couldn’t figure out where to go from there). Despite being less intelligent than a bag of rocks, Scooby did have one talent in life. he could herd cats. When our cats got out, Scooby would herd them back into the house.

One of our cats is black. In a thread about skunks, you can probably see where this is going. One night the black cat got out, and Scooby went to go herd her back into the house. The cat went across the street and into some bushes, and Scooby followed. He found a small black critter, roughly cat-sized, and got sprayed point-blank in the face by a skunk.

We tried several different remedies from the internet, and nothing seemed to help much. I don’t know what possessed Mrs. Geek to try it, but what finally worked to get the smell out (mostly) was Vagisil. At first I thought she was joking, because “boxes and boxes of Vagisil” is a common joke in the Geek household (from here, if you’re not familiar with it: Stuart Bloopers Vagisil - YouTube ). But it worked.

Regarding the forgotten anti-skunk solution that worked on my Bernese Mountain Dog, thinking about it a bit more clearly I remembered enough to recall that I got it at Petsmart, so I just did a search, and I’m almost 100% certain that it was this stuff – Nature’s Miracle Skunk Odor Remover.

But do pick up a good quality dog shampoo, too. You’ll want to wash off the first stuff and give your dog a second washing.

Reading the suggestions for home remedies like tomato juice, etc, I remember seeing those, too. I was skeptical at the time and I think various folks claimed it didn’t really work. No comment about the solution offered in #15, but hey, if it works, it works!

^that is really funny!

No dogs involved but I gotta tell it anyway.

Years ago I was watching a Marty Stouffer episode about skunks and they wanted to show what being skunked looks like. A surplussed* MOPP suit was obtained and Marty dressed in it, then approached a skunk, 16-mm camera in hand. I think maybe it was tied down but it didn’t run away as, camera running, he poked at it with a stick. The skunk looked annoyed, presented its rear, and let fly. A white vapor flew towards the camera, expanding as it came. It was totally fascinating – for about half a second. The view started jerking around and you hear a muffled, “This thing leaks!” The POV changed to the crew who was filming from a suitable distance laughing their asses off as their star drops the camera and, shedding the suit as he goes, runs to and dives into a pond.

  • I guess they hadn’t figured out why it was surplussed.

I will also attest to this method. Our boxer has been sprayed numerous times (15!) and he’s only 4. It’s something they don’t ever seem to learn from. Even though this method works the best, you will still have a residual odor for quite a while. Especially if the dog gets wet. I’m talking MONTHS!

Sounds like a good boy.