"Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat What Are They Feeding You??"

Or in the Vance House, "Smelly Dog"

Last week just needs to go down in the Vance archives as a comedy of errors. First the power outage and all that ensued, and now this...

Wednesday night, Daddy got home from his business trip. Boy, was I happy to see him! You had had a hard day.  You weren't feeling well due to a stuffy nose which led to some nursing issues (among other things). I was more than ready for you to hit the crib to get some good shut eye.

Daddy and I were both worn out. Daddy decided to go to bed first, which left me on Daisy duty. No big deal, or so I thought. She did her thing. I stood by the door waiting. There was nothing out of the ordinary, until I opened the door. The waft of air hit me HARD. There was no mistaking it, Daisy had been sprayed by a skunk. We have had Daisy for 6 years and lived in/visited some pretty rural and wild areas. A fox is really the only thing we've encountered with her around. I never thought we'd have to worry about skunks in Chicago!!!! Boy was I wrong. Apparently, skunks, possums, and foxes are popular here.

I got Daddy out of the bed and we came up with a plan of action. Upstairs and straight into the big tub. I found a wonderful home remedy online (not tomato juice...it apparently only masks the odor). We happened to have all the ingredients on hand. I whipped it up, pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, doused Daisy with the solution and let it sit. Meanwhile, Daddy opened up all the windows because our house STUNK! Fifteen minutes passed, we rinsed and much to our surprise, the smell was gone! It worked!!!! The house still smelled, but Daisy was good. Since Daisy had plopped herself on the carpet before we got her up to the tub, the carpet had a lingering odor. It was nothing a little carpet shampoo couldn't take care of. We were lucky. Apparently, Daisy didn't get sprayed too bad. I read that some dogs come back dripping in skunk "juice" and that the spray can disorient them. Who knew.

We now keep the ingredients for skunk "antidote" on hand for emergencies. Never a dull moment... never.