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thewayneAbout 12:30am she was either checking email from work or signed on to the work chat channel, and found out some pretty rough news: a friend of ours with whom we game occasionally, her dog got skunked - at work! I have never seen, much less smelled, a skunk at the observatory. But it makes sense that if I see and smell skunks on a regular basis around our house, 15 or so miles away from the observatory and at roughly the same altitude, give or take 300 feet, that they'd also be at the observatory. The owner isn't on my wife's crew, she's on the 2.5 meter telescope.
So Russ changed clothes (fortunately I'd just finished laundry and they were in the dryer), grabbed our dog washing kit, complete with anti-skunk enzyme, and drove off to the observatory.
I don't envy the concept of washing a dog outside. If it wasn't below freezing, it had to be in the low 30s. But the bathrooms in the main building are toilets-only, and as I recall the dorms are showers-only, so it had to be a hose bib and bucket bath outside. Plus, they'd probably get in a lot of trouble for washing a skunked dog in the dorms!
Fortunately Russet's working Wednesday/Thursday, so this'll help get her on a day sleep schedule. Lexie, the dog, is a medium-hair, I'm not sure how that'll help in terms of how long the smell will persist. When Rupert, our blue tick hound with short hair got skunked last year, one bath and just a couple of days and he was scent-free. Hopefully Lexie won't persist in being odoriferous like our poodles do.
So Russ changed clothes (fortunately I'd just finished laundry and they were in the dryer), grabbed our dog washing kit, complete with anti-skunk enzyme, and drove off to the observatory.
I don't envy the concept of washing a dog outside. If it wasn't below freezing, it had to be in the low 30s. But the bathrooms in the main building are toilets-only, and as I recall the dorms are showers-only, so it had to be a hose bib and bucket bath outside. Plus, they'd probably get in a lot of trouble for washing a skunked dog in the dorms!
Fortunately Russet's working Wednesday/Thursday, so this'll help get her on a day sleep schedule. Lexie, the dog, is a medium-hair, I'm not sure how that'll help in terms of how long the smell will persist. When Rupert, our blue tick hound with short hair got skunked last year, one bath and just a couple of days and he was scent-free. Hopefully Lexie won't persist in being odoriferous like our poodles do.
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Date: 2019-03-05 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-05 01:05 am (UTC)She quite often is, indeed.
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Date: 2019-03-05 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-05 03:57 pm (UTC)I should bake cookies for her on Thursday so she can take them to work. I'd do it Wednesday for the start of her shift, but I have a doctor appt in Las Cruces. Maybe I could do some tonight, we'll see. I've got a new recipe from![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lydy that I've been wanting to try.... Beacon Hill Cookies. I'd never heard of them before!
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Date: 2019-03-06 09:12 am (UTC)I didn't know about anti-skunk enzyme. But if it's not available, a combination of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and liquid soap works wonders. I had dog that was sure the skunks would play with her if she asked nicely enough; this recipe worked wonders.
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Date: 2019-03-06 04:06 pm (UTC)Yeah, our dogs have the same certitude. You can tell the relative position of where the skunk 'fired' from based on where the greatest concentration of smell is on the dog: one of ours got it full in the face when his mouth was open! Our bag contains the enzyme shampoo, hydrogen peroxide, and baking soda. Based on previous usage, it works pretty well. All three of our dogs are absolutely fascinated by the critters. Turned out it was Katie's first night of a four-night run, Russet will find out tonight how effective the bath was.