Skunked!

Thursday night Mike was out watching the hockey game with some friends at a pub. I went to my kickboxing class the came home and watched my Thurday night NBC line up. I took the dogs out and went to bed.

Mike arrived home at 1:00 AM and took the dogs out for the last time while I was sleeping. Our door was closed. I then remember waking up to an odd smell. SKUNK! We have a lot of skunks in our park out front and sometimes you smell it every once in the while. I figured it was wafting through the window. Nope. I open the bedroom door and am overpowered by the smell of SKUNK! I find Mike with the dogs in the bathroom and "greet him". Yes he says, the dogs have been skunked.

He let the dogs off leash in the park (which is pretty normal for us) and they encountered and proceeded to attack a skunk in the middle of the park. They both were sprayed several times. Mike says that Unos especially was trying to kill the animal. Very vicious sounds were coming from the dog. Once they were sprayed the dogs were foaming at the mouth and gagging. Rubbing themselves in the grass and trying to rub themselves on Mike. He threw them both into the fountain in the park trying to dilute the stench before he brought them inside.

It was like nothing I ever encountered before. No matter how bad you might think the the smell is, you have no idea. It is so potent, so strong, it is unimaginable. My eyes were watering, and we were gagging. We had face masks which we'd bought around the H1N1 outbreak and we put them on. Mike started to wash them using the flat of V8 tomato juice we'd bought at Cosco. I closed all bedroom the doors in the condo and moved anything cloth into a room with a closed door.

After washing them several times, Mike needed a break so I took over. I doused them in cans of V8 and worked it into their coats. I tried to make them stay still for 10 minutes before rinsing it off. It didn't seem to be working, maybe a little but not really. The bathroom however was getting speckled with the red juice as the dogs shook off. lol, what a mess.

We then read on Google that the tomato juice method is actually a myth. Your olfactory glands become overloaded with skunk due to how overpowering it is. Then when the tomato juice is doused on the dogs, you smell the tomato juice because your glands are so overwhelmed, they smell the tomato smell over the skunk. We discover the best homemade cure is peroxide, baking soda and dish detergent which neutralizes the smell.

So Mike leaves me with the dogs in the bathroom around 3AM to go to the 24 hour drug mart and pick up these ingrediants. He returns home with them (and some apolgy chocolates for me ;) ) and mixes it up. I bathe them in this mixture twice mixing shampoo washes in between twice then I dry them off. I think this is the best we can do for the night and I'm exhausted. I wash myself and leave the bathroom. We then fence the dogs in with living room furniture into a corner on their beds to dry off and go to sleep. We put them out on the balcony for a little while to dry off.

Mike takes over and bleaches the bathroom. We throw out all the shampoo bottles, shower curtain, towels, dog collars, etc. Anything that came in contact with them reeks of skunk. That's it, it isn't perfect, but tolerable and almost normal. The time is 5:30AM. I wake up a few hours later and go to work. (Zombie mode) Mike then later in the morning takes them to a dog grooming service and has them deskunked and washed again. he buys a deskunking kit that includes enzymes which we continue to rub on them twice a day. The dogs are pretty clean but you can still smell the sites where they were spayed and we continue to treat them. Unos got it about three times in the face and Tala once.

Never again will we let the dogs off leash at night! We are now prepared with toooons of skunk off and everything we need to be prepared. Today we went shopping and replaced everything in the house that was contaminated. Forty-eight hours later and we have been restored to normalcy.

So things had been going so flawlessly and ridiculously well that we had to have a bump in the road. I have to say that Mike and I worked really well together when faced with this. No arguing, no blaming, just working to get the job done and in the end we have a pretty good story. I love my dogs, but this one really really tested my limits. When Mike left for the drug store I commented, "just buy a gun and a shovel instead, it will be easier". But no, I couldn't, they are my babies. But when these babies are gone, I won't be rushing to replace them for many a year, that's for sure :)

Christmas

This Christmas, Mike and I spent it in Calgary at Tina's place. It was Dax's first Christmas so the family was all meeting there this year so the whole B clan could be together.

The night before we left, Mike and I opened some of our presents since we'd have to wait until after Christmas otherwise. I opened the snowboarding gear that Mom & Dad got me. I absolutely love it and I have got to use it for the first time and it all fit and worked great.



This year Mike's big present was a new ski package. Skis, boots, bindings and poles. This is fantastic now because all we have to do when we hit the slopes is get the lift tickets. No more standing in line for rentals.

Our fabulous friend Chris looked after Unos and Tala while we were away and he did a fantastic job. I'd of felt so guilty leaving them in a kennel over the holidays.

The next day we hopped on a plane very early in the morning and Kim picked us up at the airport *thanks Kim.

We had a great time, lots of good food, drinks, cooking, shopping and laughs.

I even got a chance to hang out with Emily and George who stopped in on their way back from skiing at Lake Louise.












































Mike got hockey gear from the family. He'll have to now find a league to join to get into hockey again. He has been thinking about it for a while.

We also had a great time playing on the wii fit. I'm even considering getting one it was so much fun.

Tina's boyfriend Jesse was the best at the game and there was some stiff competition.

Emily, George, Mike and I all went out for a fun dinner at a restaurant called Japanese Garden. Basically it is a Japanese steakhouse where they do the entertainment grilling similar to Osaka. We went back to their hotel and had some drinks and we had a blast. Thanks guys!





























So that was Christmas, then we home visited with the doggies and Raymond and Barb came to Vancouver and visited with us.

More on that next blog.

Hope everyone back home had a great Christmas too! I called everyone and got lots of great messages, texts, calls over Christmas. Thanks everyone!