Mission Pepe Le Pew

Lexie and I embarked on an important, secret op mission this morning. We knew Wes had to get up early to drive to Asheville for his Army drill, so we got up when he did to conduct a predawn patrol of the backyard perimeter to make sure all was safe for him to move out.

A dog down the street alerted us to a possible perpetrator headed our way. Upon taking our post at the back gate we spotted a black and white figure with beady eyes. I did what a good guard dog does: barked. My message was clear: You are not welcome here, so move on along or we will have to take evasive action.

As the invader turned to vacate the premises, I gave a few more warning barks to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. I guess I barked one too many times for Cheryl, who, having been roused by Wes’ getting ready, was trying to fall back asleep.

We heard the bathroom window open. We heard Cheryl bark, “Baxter, no bark! Baxter, hush!” Then it happened. The intruder secreted the foulest of odors as he scurried away. The backyard took a direct hit as the smell exploded through the fence. The house took a more indirect hit as the smell penetrated through the open bathroom window.

“What is that?” Lexie asked. “It smells so bad it smells good.”

I answered, “I think that, Little Sis, is what you call a skunk. I think we’ve just been sprayed.”

Through the open bathroom window we heard Wes’ voice. “Do you know what Bax was barking at? A skunk. It had to be close to smell that strong.” I couldn’t see Cheryl’s face as Wes stated the obvious, but I can imagine her nose wrinkling, eyes rolling and then a wave of concern for us rolling over her.

In the meantime, Lexie had a wonderful idea. “Here Bax, the smell is the strongest here in this tall patch of grass and weeds that haven’t been mowed in two weeks. Let’s roll in it and get even more of this perfume on us.”

When the porch light came on we headed toward the house to let Cheryl smell the wonderful aroma we had just discovered. “Oh,” she cried when she opened the door. “Why does it smell like burnt garlic?”

After determining we were stinky but OK, Cheryl immediately clicked on the computer and Googled: When my dogs get sprayed by a skunk … She learned that hosing us down with water would be bad but scrubbing us with the possibly explosive mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and soap would be good, as long as it was not mixed in a closed containing. She also learned that letting us in the house would be bad and that the smell can last up to two years on dogs.

Cheryl was prepared to trek to the store to buy the ingredients needed to destink us, so with rubber gloves covering her hands, she searched us over looking for oily spots of skunk spray. When she wondered out loud why she couldn’t find source of the smell, we informed her we didn’t take a direct hit and then had to confess that we did roll in the leftover spray.

“It was Lexie’s idea,” I told her, as I rubbed up against her leg. Lexie came over to smell Cheryl and said, “Now you smell like us.”

“Great,” Cheryl said and then declared she was going back to bed. She changed clothes, gave the smelly ones to Wes to take outside to air out, crawled into bed and pulled the covers over her head to try to escape the smell of our encounter with Pepe Le Pew.