Your friend might also have run inside due to a fear that the skunk might have been rabid. IIRC, skunks aren’t usually that fearless, and for one to get that close could mean rabies.
Ferret owners do, however have the musk glands removed. Ferret musk is faintly redolant of skunk, I’ve smelled skunk, (I was in a car that hit one, horrid!) and an intact ferret. I’d take the ferret any day.
Can you make friends with one? If you crouch low in a non-threatening manner and make clicking noises at it?
I’ve managed this with foxes - never got one to actually come up to me but I’ve established a friendship whereby I’m maybe five feet away and it sits down and starts licking itself to show that it doesn’t see me as a threat (before running away after a couple of minutes).
Wow, DF, you shore made me look stoopit! My subscription to the Journal of Mammology lapsed in 1997, so I was not aware that, since the last time it was relevant to my life–I had a ferret in the 80s–the taxonomy had changed.
So I was not just pulling misinformation out of my ass. The last time I had occasion to look it up, my information was correct. Sorry for not keeping up.
(Excuse the tone, but you might have responded in a way that made it seem like you were sharing information, rather than scoring points.)
I’m not in the mood for this, so I’ll be brief:
I posted a grand total of two sentences, both of them completely matter-of-factual. Any tone you sense is brought entirely by yourself.
But if you do want some of what you perceive, how about this: if you aren’t up to date on your taxonomy, perhaps you would do well to avoid the topic.
Coulda pre-quoted that response.
If someone posts something, in good faith, that was recently correct and has only been superseded by more recent knowledge, rather than just being flat out ass-talking wrong, it indicates some familiarity, and some basic knowledge of the subject at hand. The fact that I would know, just out of my own memory, that (at least until recently) skunks and ferrets were in the same family, should indicate to you, DF, that I’m not just blowing WAGs into a thread about a subject on which I am entirely ignorant. That to some limited degree, we might be–speaking very loosely here–“colleagues” uder the skin; at least that we share some interest and knowledge on the subject at hand.
At least I hope that this is the assumption that I would have made, if the situation had been reversed, and I would have responded with some courtesy. I would have said, "DF, skunks and ferrets used to be in the same family, but the taxonomy changed in 1997 . . . " That would have been polite and respectful to someone who was participating in this thread in good faith.
Do you look up every word in a dictionary before you spell it out, DF? Do you look up every single fact you ever learned before you participate in a thread? or do you trust the basic veracity of your well earned base of knowledge, keep up where you can, and post from that knowledge base? And hope that perhaps where you’ve missed this memo or that memo, someone will respectfully and politely share the new information with you?
Granted, I’m overreacting and this is an unmitigated hijack. But childish disrespect for no other reason to maintain your own self respect by trying to undermine others’ really pisses me off.
Yes you can, in fact here’s a forum specifically for skunk owners.
sigh
lissener, there was no disrespect nor impoliteness implied or intended in my post. And I sure as hell don’t see how my post was “childish”.
I did not insult, I did not taunt, I did not demean, I did not gloat, and I did not do anything else that you seem to think I was doing. You posted a factual mistake, whether you thought otherwise at the time or not, and I corrected it. It was as simple as that. Happens every day, many times here in GQ. And it’s happened to me many times.
You are finding offense were there is none. Save your idignation for the times people are actually insulting you, fercryinoutloud.
Indeed you are ladies and gents.
I’m glad we don’t have the rascals here in the UK but having said that I’ve got a pal who is a tad wary of water/soap and at times…phew!
As an aside, if sprayed by Mr Skunk how do you get shut of the smell before your buddies get shut of you?
Are there any zoos with skunks?
DF, I think it’s your second post that’s the problem…
Now, FWIW, I did see the change of taxonomy back in’97. I noticed it because I’ve got an interest in animals in general and because at that time, I had a skunk.
Her name was Reekie and she was unfixed. During her time with me, from about six weeks until she died quite suddenly at around eight months, she only sprayed once. That was in a box, the day I brought her home. In my car. During rush hour. In May, with the windows rolled down.
I got the darndest looks… :eek:
Other than that, she was a complete sweetheart, totally hand tame and willing to be picked up and held. Somewhere I’ve got a picture of her in my arms.
I’ve also got it in my mind that the taxonomy might have been changed back sometime during the past year or so, but I really can’t remember where I picked that up.
The TV series Mythbusters tackled this one, experimenting on the effectiveness of various reputed skunk-tamers:
[ul][li]Tomato juice: smelled like a “bloody mary,” but no skunk. plausible [/li][li]Beer (MGD): used to cleanup bathroom where skunk sprayed. “Smells like the men’s room at a dive bar.” busted[/li][li]Douche: Adam took a swig to verify that it’s composed vinegar and water. “Not so fresh.” busted[/li][li]Hydrogen peroxide + baking soda + liquid dish soap: it worked. Apparently the mixture releases oxygen compounds that bond with thiols and neutralize their smell. confirmed[/li][li]Commercial skunk remover: worked, but not as well as the hydrogen peroxide mixture. ok[/ul][/li]
So I’d fill a bathtub with H[sub]2[/sub]O[sub]2[/sub], Arm & Hammer, and Ivory, dilute a bit with water, and just roll around for a while.
Speaking from experience tomato juice will remove skunk smell from a dog. It does require some scrubing and takes awhile. After the skunk smell is gone you have to follow up with regular shampoo to get rid of the tomato smell.
All in all more fun than should be allowed by law at 2 AM
We used to keep 3-4 BIG cans of the TJ around just in case.
Let it go, lissener . . . you are indeed overreacting.
Darwin’s Finch’s post is in no manner childish or disrespectful.
Cajun Man
for the SDMB
My experience is just the opposite. Many times while backpacking I have had them wander into camp and proceed to rifle through my backpack despite my urgings to the contrary. And once while house-sitting, one came through the doggie door and curled up in a bucket in the laundry room this time against my more vocal attempts to ask it to leave.
Sad story, so sorry but I pictured this little guy being so pissed off at cars for running down his mom, he chose to moon them as they drove by.
Had one as pet. Picked up as a baby (same story as lissner). Had it for years, never sprayed, or more correctly ‘squirted’.
It’s not just you, it’s “never having been sprayed”. Having been squirted myself, I can assure you that it quite another thing to actually have it on you rather than catching the occasional whiff. I got it on my right side (my hand having blocked my face) and actually had to walk home with my right side downwind to avoid the ‘soul vomiting’ posited by Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor, (“A good, full-strength dose of skunk is worse than sewage, worse than a rotting carcass, foul enough to make you think you’ve vomited up your immortal soul.”) Though I would add you might indeed vomit up your immortal soul and not just think you have.
I have no book learin’ about this, but based on ‘field’ experience I would say it is the act of this ass-swinging that helps propel the…uh… stink juice proper.
Clock, all solutions to this problem are a matter of degree. Imo, none actually rids the smell completely.
Nitpick: This depends on whether the mammalogist doing the classification is a “lumper” or a splitter." Some mammalogists put all members of Canoidea which are not Canids, Ursids, or sometimes Procyonids into Mustelidae, which then has five or six subfamilies, including Mephitinae. Others separate out the skunks, the ratel, and a couple of other groups into separate families.
The “active ingredient” in skunk spray, by the way, is butyl mercaptan. Either butyl or methyl mercaptan is the additive added to (odorless) natural gas to provide the characteristic smell that alerts you that a burner has not lit.
Then I was mistaken. My apologies to lissener. I shall stay out of future discussions of this nature, as I do not have all the facts myself.
Sounds to me as though both Darwin’s Finch, and lissener were correct in a way. I don’t think either of you should not post on topics like this, FWIW.
My friend, the ONLY way is to bathe in tomato sauce.
I know it sounds stupid, but that’s the only thing that works.
“Odormute” works, and it’s pretty cheap. It’s what zoos use to clean out lion cages (cite from when I knew a lot of zookeepers); it will eliminate almost any organic odor. I never used it on skunk, but it was magic on ferret. And the manufacturer claims that is effective on skunk. In my experience with its other claims, the manufacturer don’t lie, so I’d say it’s worth trying next time you get skunked.