Skunk'd

Oh great -- I thought our dog drama was over for a while. But apparently not.

First, about mid-week or so last week, Bandit started acting funny. She got a little, um, OCD. Kept rubbing her face on the floor, started trying to chew off her paw. Took her 25 minutes to settle down and find a comfortable spot to sleep Wed night. Then she woke up in the middle of the night and again went thru this whole long pacing ritual. Thurs morning, she didn't eat. So I called the vet thinking I could just talk to the doc and she'd had some ideas. But she was pretty concerned and wanted me to come in. So Thurs morning, I found myself calling work and letting them know I had another pet emergency and would be coming in late. Turns out she's ok - probably OD'd on her meds. The meds inhibit her cortisol production, so it makes sense that if inhibited too much, her stress responses could go a little haywire, resulting in some very anxious behavior. The doc gave her a steroid shot and is having her cut her meds for a few days.

THEN on Sat night, we were walking the dogs when Mia got skunked. She couldn't have been more than a few yards ahead of us, so I'm not sure how it happened. But not only did she get sprayed, it seems like there might have been a little scuffle because she came out with a big gash on her cheek and the skunk seemed to have lost big chunks of black fur. Sigh. Thank goodness she's caught up on her vaccines, cuz G says that skunks wandering around in broad daylight like that are most likely rabid.

Last time Mia got skunked (yes, there was another time -- she's apparently dumb and doesn't learn from her mistakes), we used this stuff called Nature's Miracle. It sort of did the trick, I guess, but Mia was still banished to the kitchen for some time. And it was quite a while before the smell completely wore off.

This time, we'd thought we'd try something different, since my friend swore by tomato sauce. Not sure if it was anymore successful. Fortunately, she didn't get skunked as badly this time, so it wasn't as intolerable to begin with. But Mia looks a little orange now, and I don't know if the cross between skunk juice and tomato sauce is any more flattering to her. She did seem to like the remedy a bit better though, since she got to lick the tomato sauce as I slapped it on her. But overall, her mortification was clear.

And for the rest of the weekend, she ran every time I brought the hose out (often, since we were doing a lot of yard work).

Tucker on the other hand, LOVED the tomato sauce. I'm thinking he would have rated the whole skunking as quite successful. Especially after he managed to clean up all the spillage on the bricks AND on Mia. He started licking Mia every chance he got, pretty much capping her misery, I'm sure.