“What do you do if your dog gets sprayed by a skunk?
For one thing, don’t bring it into the house.
That’s a lesson Megan Schickedanz of Palatine learned the hard way when her 4-year-old pet German Shepherd mix, Quimby, got skunked last Thursday night.
“We were panicked. We didn’t know what to do,” she said.
Schickedanz and her husband, Brian, bathed their dog several times with Dawn dishwashing soap and a mixture of peroxide and baking soda until the odor diminished — but their home was a different animal.
The couple took off work the next day to de-skunk their home, from cleaning the upholstery to steam-cleaning all the carpets.
“Cleaning the dog took an hour. That was easy. Cleaning the house took 12 hours,” Schickedanz said. “We didn’t realize how much the smell would inundate our house. It just smelled like the most foul, potent stench I have ever smelled.”
With skunks running amok in suburban yards, local authorities are advising suburban residents on how to avoid getting skunked and how to keep their pets safe from the foul-smelling, oily sprays of the striped critters.
Wildlife experts say the skunk population in the six-county suburban region is at a record high largely because skunks have few natural predators thanks to their pungent defense mechanism, and there has not been a widespread disease outbreak killing off large numbers of the population in recent years.
More than 700 skunks have been trapped to date this year as they scour neighborhoods in search of beetle grubs, berries and other delicacies.”…..
By Madhu Krishnamurthy- Daily Herald 10/27/11
http://www.npwma.com/