We came home tonight to the overpowering smell of skunk in our neighborhood. We had left the dog outside, and were joking about lil’ Gromit chasing around a skunk in the backyard. Come to find out, he got into something. I’m not sure if it’s skunk or not. Like I said, the smell of skunk is in the air big time. Gromit smells around his head and eyes, and he’s kind of blinking, but his eyes are neither red nor watering.
He doesn’t smell so badly that we don’t want him in the house. In fact, other than the occasional whiff when he walks by, the only time you can smell him is if you put your nose right next to his head. It smells bitter, almost like an electrical fire or chemically.
He was left in an enclosed backyard, and there are no electrical fires or chemicals out there that we can find. We did a quick check, and couldn’t find anything amiss other than some holes dug along the perimeter. We’re thinking they look like they were dug by skunks, not dogs. They’re too small, and not in the typical shape that the dog digs.
We’ve seen skunks in the yard, so all evidence points to a skunk. However, the smell on the dog is not overwhelmingly strong, and doesn’t particularly smell like skunk. So what’s going on?
Sounds like he rolled in something dead. Disgusting as that is, dogs seem to like to do this - they find bird or small animal carcasses and roll their faces in them. Whenever my dogs did this, I was never able to locate the corpses of the things, so not finding any remains is not proof that there weren’t any.
You think something dead would give that electrical smell? Maybe… He spent the night outside in his kennel, until about 4 am when it started raining. At that point he got moved to the basement. He’s now anxiously awaiting my trip to the store to buy doggie shampoo. Then bath time!
I would guess your dog wasn’t sprayed Athena. We lived in a house a few years ago that was pretty far out in the country. Skunks were common, and there were times when a skunk would spray and the smell would permeate the house. One evening, the smell just kept getting stronger and stronger instead of dissipating. I walked over to our dog, and didn’t notice that the skunk smell was any stronger. However, when I bent down to smell him, my eyes started burning and my nose started running. I’m not sure everyone’s reaction would be like mine, but I am guessing you’d be getting more than just whiffs if it was a skunk.
The fun part was, this happened around 10 pm. We ended up grabbing all our food products with tomato in them, and took the dog to our walk in shower. (Great Dane) Rubbing him down with stewed tomatoes was interesting to say the least.
In a pinch, pineapple juice works nearly as well as tomato. I know this because I once went camping with three dogs, and they were apparently working together to harass a skunk, and our dogs weren’t the only ones - all the area grocery stores were out of tomato juice by the time we got there.
cichlidiot, that’s what I thought. If it had been a skunk, I would have thought the dog would stink so badly that he couldn’t be in the house.
Update: We put him in his kennel and put that out on our deck for him to sleep last night. At about 4am, I woke up and noticed it was raining. I couldn’t leave him out there in the rain, so we brought him and his kennel in and put it in the basement. This morning, Mr. Athena spent about 20 minutes in the shower with him with baby shampoo and one small can of tomato sauce (we had no juice, just tomato sauce) and he got just about all the smell out.
Is it possible he got sprayed or urinated on by either some other animal that has stink glands but not as bad as a skunk? Haven’t I heard that racoons have some sort of mini-stink stuff? Or could he have gotten sprayed by a skunk who was just about out of stinky stuff?
Well, mine was just a guess Athena. I am pretty sure that my dog was sprayed head-on. He felt oily, with the worst of it seeming to be concentrated in the head region. Maybe your dog was partially sprayed, or LifeOnWry’s suggestion of rolling in something could be the answer? I’m not familiar with raccoons and musk, so maybe some other dopers will chime in. Glad to hear you got the stink out.
He might have been sprayed by a cat or raccoon.
Or maybe just rolled in a spot where they urinated.
We have two sheepdogs and the ocassional skunk wanders 'round our neighborhood. We keep two one-gallon bottles of vinegar in the basement in the case of a “spray emergency”. Works as well as tomato juice because of higher acid level.
