Polecats and Other Vermin

pole·cat  (plkt)
n.
1.
a. A chiefly nocturnal European carnivorous mammal (Mustela putorius) of the weasel family that ejects a malodorous fluid to mark its territory and ward off enemies. Also called fitch.
b. Any of various related mammals of Asia, especially Mustela eversmanni of central Asia.
2. See skunk.

When I lived in Boston, I used to meet my friends  at a local cantina on Thursday nights that was sort of an eclectic Tex Mex joint with southwestern and local art on the walls and spicy food.  It had hanging pendent lights and served margaritas in thick, sea green glasses rimmed with salt.  Back then, if one of my buddies had leaned across the polished wood table and said, "Hey, guess what?  Fifteen years from now, you will be living in a ramshackle house on five acres of over grown land and your two ungroomed terriers will get sprayed by skunks as often as four times a year.  I would have laughed.

"No way, that's not possible.  Skunks only exist in books, "I might have said. "Besides, why would anyone want a dog?"

Does it seem like we personify them a bit?

Years later as I lay, not awake, in bed waiting for for my terriers to come back inside, I heard a screech.  Mac sounds like tires pealing out when he is in distress.  That was the sound times two. There was ferocious snarling mixed with squeaking .

 "Dan," I shook him.  "Wake up!!!"  It was his turn to deal with the dogs.  "Something's wrong; wake up!!!"  He woke with a sluggish wave of his hand. Then rolled over to fall back asleep. I  pondered whether to lightly place a pillow over his face, but I decided I needed him for winter.  The man never startles for some reason.  He slowly climbed out of bed like a zombie to do my bidding and teetered out into the dark.

The next thing I heard was, "Oh, no!!!! Arggggggh."  should have stayed in bed and pretended to be asleep. Instead,  I had to know.  Back then, everything in the country was new.



"What is it?"  I called out.  I donned a sweatshirt and ran towards the dog poorch that over looked our door yard.

Dan was crouched, I could see through the window, over Elmer.  "His eyes are shut, he can't open them," he said.  His back to me.  I think he's been blinded by something.

 An unmistakable burnt smell hit my nostrils, like hot rubber only much stronger, so strong that I could taste it in my mouth.  "What is that ?" I asked.  Dan didn't bother to answer.

For fifteen minutes we debated what to do.  The dogs strained from the porch still scratching and whimpering.  "Should we take them to the vet?  Elmer could be blind."  As I pondered my own question, images of driving in an enclosed Honda with animals so saturated in skunk that I would veer off the road into a ditch, flashed through my mind.  "What do other people do when their dogs get zapped by skunks?"

By now the smell was making its presence in our home.  It was less burnt and more skunky (the only word to describe it).  First, it permeated our, lofted great room.  Next it moved like a cloud into our kitchen.  We periodically checked on Elmer.  His teary eyes seemed to be opening a bit, so perhaps the need for a visit to the emergency vet in Lewiston (50 miles away) was not so necessary.  

"I think I have heard people say use tomato juice," said Dan.  I looked at him incredulously.  How could tomato juice help?  Then I remembered a friend telling me that tomatoes could wash away the smell of garlic.  "Yes, tomato juice and I think baking soda."  If this was for real, I was willing to try anything.

I scoured the pantry.  Much to our chagrin there was no tomato juice, but there were several cans of petite, diced tomatoes.  "Will this do?"  I held them up.

"Do they have tomato juice in them?" Dan was being sarcastic.  He is normally a kind and patient man, but by now it was 3:00 a.m and we were both stressed and tired.   I managed to find a year old box of baking soda in the fridge, hoping it would not have taken on the residual odors of other rotting fuselage in our refrigerator.

If you have never washed a white dog in diced tomatoes and baking soda, I feel happy for you. There are several problems that can arise.  1. As soon as he is completely submerged in the chunky, paste like substance, he will do what all dogs do; shake. This is fine if you live in a home that is covered floor to ceiling in vinyl.  It is not fine if you wash him in the farm sink of your 100 year old kitchen.  To this day we may still find tiny chunks of tomato lodged in between the gaps of the pine floor boards.  2.  Red tomato concoctions turn white wire coated dogs pink.  Take it from me.  It's a fact.  Two weeks later, Elmer was still pink.

Now, our dusty rose pink Westie looked up at us blinking.  His eyesight had returned somewhat,  Mac still scratched violently at the porch door.  Little did we know that the invading skunk aroma would be literally everywhere, on coats, in cabinets, on doorknobs.  Two months down the road, we would sometimes open a cabinet and eau du fitch would waft out.

It was time to deal with Mac.  I returned to the source of the petite diced tomatoes.  But there was not a can of anything tomato with juice in site.  Well, there was tomato paste, but would that really work?  Dan looked beaten.  He shrugged, "I'm going to Walmart."  Walmart is hell, but it is the country person's mecca.  You must make a trip there once a week whether you want to or not.

Poor Dan had to slug eight miles in the freezing, dark wee hours with work looming around the corner.  I felt for him.  I wasn't going.   Maybe I would try the paste on Mac?  It didn't work.  It turned him into a kind of papier-mâché sculpture.  Use tomato juice, trust me.

Dan returned groaning.  "What happened to Mac, he's all...." he couldn't finish the sentence.

As we coated him in juice and baking soda mix, this time in the high sided bathtub,  Dan recounted his adventures at Walmart.  "First of all, I hate it there."  It seemed wrong to be so spiteful about the only place in the state open at four in the morning where you can buy both tampons and bullets. Wasn't that a kind of social service?

"So I get to the door and I'm coated in, dirt, tomato stain and skunk smell," Dan continued,"My hair was filled with peaks and horns, and my glasses were crooked.  Clearly I was cranky.  For god's sake, it's 3:30 in the morning and right on cue, without missing a beat, the Walmart greeter says, 'Hi, Welcome to Walmart.'  I wanted to strangle him.  Then everywhere I go in the store I can hear employees saying, 'What's that smell?  Do you smell skunk?'"  I laughed.  I shouldn't have laughed at his misery, but it was funny. "I hate it there." he ignored me.  It's a hideous, neon lighted box with hideous crap inside of it.  I'm never going back there again."  He had said this before.

This picture of "Camo Guy" from 9 People You see at Walmart

 Later, we fell, exhausted back in to bed.  We would try to get in an hour before we both had to go to work.  

We did ultimately clean the dogs, but it took many washings.  Since we didn't have a router at home back then,  I researched the problem on the world wide inter-web the next day at work.  It turns out that the most effective solution for cleaning skunk smell  is a combination of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and a dash of mild detergent.  Here is an excellent article the next time your dog gets whapped :  de-skunking your pet, which guided us through a second and third round of clean up.  Black Mac came out looking like an elderly lady who went to the hair salon and got herself some frosted hair tips, but it did help with the smell.

My final word of advise is be prepared.  Keep supplies on hand. We now have industrial sized bottles of hydrogen peroxide in our bathroom.  We don't live in a place that has an all night Walgreens next to the subway, three blocks away from your apartment.  We can't stroll to Starbucks and sit with our coffees to escape the smell.

Of course, a month ago when Mac actually ate part of a skunk, we left the dogs on the porch and forgot about it.  Absolutely everything about our existence was going to smell like skunk for at least a week. Months later we would still catch a feint garlicky aroma reminiscent of polecat.  Why bother turning our black scotty into an old lady with bad streaks or our white schnauzer into a neo punker?  After a while we got used to the smell, jut no one else around us did.  But, hey, now we had a perfect costume for Mac for Halloween.

Great potential for Mac.

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