Skunk sprayed my Labrador

I've had much experience with dogs getting into skunks and how to get rid of the smell. I've tried all the hydrogen peroxide /soap recipes but there is still quite a smell afterwards. One late night I was searching the web for a better option and I found article written by some bird hunters whose dog got blasted by a skunk. They were miles from home and did not relish driving home with the stinking dog. One of the hunters happened to have a bottle of Scent-away soap in his SUV which he used to wash the dog and was surprised at how well it removed the smell. I had some in my closet and the next morning washed our unfortunate pooch and was amazed how well it worked. we were able to bring her in the house after washing her with the Scent-away.

v-fib

I have found nowhere on a skunks body that a bullet will prevent spraying, so I don't bother trying to head shoot them.

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If its possible in your location, try your 30-30 on a couple. They probably wont spray per se, the resulting odor may be secondary ejection of bodily matter. The one I shot with the 30-30 looked like it bodily exploded.

It’s probably been twenty years ago when my dad got up at 2:00 in the morning to let his beloved Brittany spaniel out to do her thing. Dad sat and smoked a cigarette until he heard the dog clawing at the back door and whining.
He said as soon as he opened the door all he could smell was skunk. The dog rushed past him, ran straight into the bedroom, jumped in bed with mom and started trying to rub the skunk spray off on the bedding.
It was months before mom and dad could laugh about that night. I guess they put the dog in the shower and scrubbed her down with dog shampoo. They also used up all of the V-8 juice they had on hand because they didn’t have any straight tomato juice. But part of the problem was that dad couldn’t get down on his knees to help. So the dog scrubbing was left to mom, who could only work for a minute or two before she had to turn around and puke in the toilet.
They never even tried to get the smell out of their bedding – they burned it. And their Brittany spaniel went from the dog that used to love her showers, to the dog that ran and hid every time one of them headed for the bathroom.

If its possible in your location, try your 30-30 on a couple. They probably wont spray per se, the resulting odor may be secondary ejection of bodily matter. The one I shot with the 30-30 looked like it bodily exploded.

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I don't think I've ever shot one with anything bigger than the .22Mag but it's worth a try.

That said, I haven't seen one in over a month so maybe I got `em all?

CraigC said:

Yep! Last January we had one get under the house and spray. Had to vacate the house for three days until we could air it out. Had to throw away our expensive Tempurpedic bed. At that point I declared jihad and have killed 17 skunks in the last 7 months. Two trapped, the rest shot, mostly with my 10/22. I have found nowhere on a skunks body that a bullet will prevent spraying, so I don't bother trying to head shoot them.

In my experience, there's only a few things that eliminate skunk odor. Father Time, bleach and gasoline.

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In the many skunks I've ever killed, either trapped or loose, only once did I successfully avoid any excess vile repercussions, 5 ft away from a VERY young male facing head on and slightly uphill with a .223 fmj where the skull meets the spine.... been trying for that shot for 11 years and 3 weeks ago it worked.....honestly I doubt I could replicate it and will probably not try too hard. It may have even been a fluke skunk but in general I have found less odor if they are unaware of impending doom, not nonexistent just less. Dodging the live trap sprays in close quarters in my boss's barn long ago prompted much experimenting. The most successful tricks for skunk riddance are (to me) less humane, but proven effective by several local sources. Number 1: live trap, throw a blanket over the cage and drop entire setup in a stock tank, the late kind old gentleman who showed me this swore that he'd never been sprayed since first application. Number 2: I severely disagree with this one for cruelty and littering issues, leave empty little yogurt cups out for them to trap their heads in and die a slow death over a several day period as their arms can't push it off like most other critters, never seen nor tried it.

To fight skunk smell on a dog, one has to realize that the scent has an oily texture to it and is not water soluable. If you wash your dog with water or normal soap, chances are you will just spread it around and not remove a lot of it. Tomato juice was an old treatment as the acidity helped somewhat to cut the oil.
I owned a dog grooming facility years ago and we found that dawn dish soap did better than anything else we tried as it is designed to work with greasy stuff. Just be careful to keep it out of their eyes! We would wash a dog throughly with Dawn and rinse a couple times, followed by a regular bath to help remove the Dawn...as it isn't necessarily kind to a dog's skin. Absolutely nothing will remove 100% of the scent but you can reduce it a lot this way.

Sure sounds to me like a lot of problems occur with unrestrained/unwatched pets and people chosing to blast away these little beasts that are most often no threat. Killing one or two will do zero to changing the chances of a future encounter. Just walk away.

AlfonsDeWolf said:

Sure sounds to me like a lot of problems occur with unrestrained/unwatched pets and people chosing to blast away these little beasts that are most often no threat. Killing one or two will do zero to changing the chances of a future encounter. Just walk away.

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I don't think it's necessarily that simple. As per a hunting dog in the field, they don't work very well when restrained and even tho, in many cases, they are watched very well, they still are probably 20 yards away or so and still likely to get sprayed before the owner gets there to pull them back. In the case of hounds runnin' coon/'yote/bear/rabbits the distance is much greater and the likelihood of getting sprayed even more. It's not always about irresponsible dog owners, it's just the nature of the two beasts. Maybe why it happens so often. Skunks besides spraying dogs, have a nasty habit of creating damage by diggin' up lawns and burrowing under buildings. They also are one of the most common animals to harbor and spread rabies. They are the only animal in my lifetime that I have even seen with the disease in the wild and I have seen it more than once. They are legal year round in my state and dealt with accordingly.

AlfonsDeWolf said:

Sure sounds to me like a lot of problems occur with unrestrained/unwatched pets and people chosing to blast away these little beasts that are most often no threat. Killing one or two will do zero to changing the chances of a future encounter. Just walk away.

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I live in a city. You don't actually believe someone will let their dog out in their fenced backyard on a leash, do you? And keep their dog on a leash whenever he's in the yard?

Killing one or two will do zero to changing the chances of a future encounter. Just walk away.

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Wait until they try to copulate under your house when the female isn't being receptive and ends up spraying Misseur Pepé Le Pew.

Sure sounds to me like a lot of problems occur with unrestrained/unwatched pets and people chosing to blast away these little beasts that are most often no threat. Killing one or two will do zero to changing the chances of a future encounter. Just walk away.

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I disagree, it absolutely guarantees I wont run into that same skunk again. Another may eventually show up, but when Ive shot them I don't see or smell any for a while afterwards. They seem to have a circuit they prowl, turning up at semi-regular intervals. Its taken a while for a replacement skunk to show up for me. I'm OK with getting a break in the cycle for a while.

AlfonsDeWolf said:

Killing one or two will do zero to changing the chances of a future encounter. Just walk away.

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Well, I disagree to a point.

While an unscientific study, we have troubles with opossums, raccoons, and an occasional skunk around our farm house periodically. I'll actively trap and destroy them for a couple weeks until the pest activity drops to zero. We then see no activity around the house for months or a year at a time after that.

It seems the word gets out that our house is not such a good place to get a free meal.

The last few years, pest activity stops after I capture just one animal.

Skunks carry rabies and opossums carry diseases, equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM) in particular, that are deadly to horses.

We had one horse get EPM while at another equine facility. We got lucky and caught it early. Many are not so lucky.

They seem to have a circuit they prowl, turning up at semi-regular intervals.

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I think they do work areas in a pattern. We never saw the same skunks in the same place every night. They seemed to work areas in a rotation. I know when I see one in the field up the road that he will eventually be within sight of home in a couple days. Haven't seen any since I shot the last one nearly two months ago.

Skunk

My dog has had two run in's with skunks and lost both times. To get rid of the smell I used a commercial stink killer, Nature's Miracle . No I don't own stock in this concoction but I wish I did . It comes in a plastic quart size bottle, get two just to be sure . Simply enough put the dog in a shower or tub and use the stuff like shampoo for two scrubs and rinses . I've found it in large grocery stores like Weise Market or Giant, you may even be able to buy it off the 'net ? I keep two bottles at home and two at camp, it's not expensive and well worth the cost. Trust me on this !

Olfactory fatigue IS your friend!

^^^^This^^^^

My Yellow Lab got in it with a skunk just last Wednesday. Same thing, skunk was walking down the road and the lab bolted from the yard. Broke through the electric fence with a tickle. Long haired albino white thing waddling down the street. I didnt identify it straight away cause it was all white. Didnt matter, my lab was having nothing of my hollering and was focusing on the skunk. He went into the bushes with it and started yelping. Came out all foaming at the mouth and spraying foam as he was shaking his head. I dragged him back into the yard and sprayed his face and mouth with the garden hose thinking it didnt smell too bad after all.

One fellow said it smelled like burnt food and I agree at first, mixed with faint ammonia smell. Then the smell kept coming, took about a day for it to really take hold. My dog still has bad breath from it. Took him straight to the vet as I thought he was overdue on rabies shot (he was not). Walked in and they said are you the one who got sprayed. I said yeah but it isnt bad, I can hardly smell it. They looked at me like I had two heads on my shoulders.

Threw away my clothes and his collar. The vet bathed my lab in some special shampoo and it cost $30. That lasted a couple days then the smell came back.

Malamute said:

I disagree, it absolutely guarantees I wont run into that same skunk again. Another may eventually show up, but when Ive shot them I don't see or smell any for a while afterwards. They seem to have a circuit they prowl, turning up at semi-regular intervals. Its taken a while for a replacement skunk to show up for me. I'm OK with getting a break in the cycle for a while.

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Completely agree! Not to mention, 4 ish wks later or less the coons get gutsy too!!!!

When I say "restrained" I don't necessarliy mean leashed. For 8 years I peed my dog outside every night in the wilds of CO with some sort of sidearm present and not just left to scurry about in a fenced area. I detest them. Our worst neighbors irrespectful of everybody ALL had fenced in dogs. They could bark at all hours and rarely were corrected. Many fenced dogs left their back yards in cat's mouths so I understand some risks and minimized those. Some cities have horrible coon problems like Louisville KY in some lower creek areas. Our little town here has plenty of coons that can give trouble. I would never let my dog near one. Now, skunks....gotta admit, I've ever had the pleasure. Plenty with rabies I think. Seems like a lot of responses from TN about skunks...lots there?

Nature's Miracle is the best stuff for getting skunk smell off a pooch.

The main thing is to wipe the skunk spray off before it dries onto the dog hair; otherwise every time the dog gets wet, the smell will be released some more.

1998. My assistant and I were running wire under a very large home under construction. Some of the plumbers were standing around talking about a skunk under the house. My all-knowing young assistant claimed to know what to do. He went under the house with a hammer. He came out sprayed, and he could not see. Brilliant. We took him to one of his relatives homes (bed of truck ride). A few days later he was back, good as new. He said he used some shampoo made specifically for skunk spray that he got from a vet. He said it took 2 days for it to work adequately. There was a wait time between shampoo/sit/rinse.

That whole house stunk for a week. 17,000 square feet of angry home owner/builder. Under the house smelled for a t least a month. Nobody would go there. I got the write-up for that fiasco.

Believe it or not, if you'll "wash" your dog in clay mud you'll be amazed how much smell it takes off. I know, I sound dumb. It's not a joke. It also won't dry your dogs skin or damage their hair. It's also free. I keep a 5 gallon bucket of clay dirt in my barn for just that reason.

I would believe the clay mud treatment. I think it would actually scrub the oily stuff off of the dog. Good thinking !

I can't believe I am reading a gun forum and someone just recommended Summers Eve ****** to get skunk smell out of a hunting dog.... Seriously, WHO 'discovers' that???

Your dog got skunked? THAT STINKS! Seriously, some dogs never learn their lesson dealing with things like electric fences, skunks, porcupines, or even snakes. You would think it would be self-correcting, but not always.