Check This Out!

Look at the end of the blog to see Bailey's picks for pet products from Amazon.

Dog VS. Skunk, Skunk Wins

Is there any animal so feared on the North American continent than a skunk? Ok, maybe a grizzly bear, but aside from the animals which can eat you, is there any other mammal that strikes terror in the heart like a skunk?  They are actually very cute animals, especially when babies. Their faces are actually sweet with their liquid black eyes and white stripe. Then there is the stink.  I tried to describe the smell to someone in England who had never smelled one.  The solution used on hair to make hair permanently curly, with rotten onions and garlic, and something else you can't quite put your finger on other than:  yup that's skunk. A smell so strong at close range it is nauseating.

Anyone whose pets go outside are at risk for a skunk encounter. Dogs seem to be the most reliable pet for getting sprayed because they are intimidating to the animal and they won't usually back off and leave the skunk alone. It doesn't matter about the intelligence of the dog either.  I had a border collie, a breed known for its keen intelligence.  He got sprayed twice. His story was amusing.

Fergus was an incredible dog as all border collies are. His intelligence was often a source of amazement.  One night he was looking out the bedroom window and insisted to be let out.  He ran around the corner of the house and ran back in approximately 20 seconds. I didn't smell the skunk until he had gotten into the house and was trying to rub the stink off on the carpet.  I grabbed him and put him back outside. It was 2am and there was no tomato juice in the house. At the time, it was the only remedy I knew.  Off to Walmart 15 miles away to purchase several cans.  The cashier commented, "So, your dog get skunked did it?"  I thought maybe she smelled it on me, but no, she said the only people that came in at 3 in the morning to get that quantity of tomato juice were people whose animals got sprayed. I arrived home to the most miserable dog I've ever seen. He sat on the back porch with his head hanging, drooling because he was nauseated.  Soon, I was hanging my head and drooling because my stomach was nauseated from the smell.  I used several cans to juice him and he had to spend the night outside. For the next few days, he smelled like rotting tomatoes and faintly of skunk. We bathed him and then he only smelled of skunk when he got wet.  I thought with his superior intelligence, there wouldn't be a second time.

A year so later, I was working outside and an adult skunk just strolled through the yard just feet from me.  It ignored me so ignored it.  I figured it was just passing through and didn't think any more about it.  I saw the same skunk every day take the same path and figured it lived somewhere close on the property, possibly under the deck or a shed. About a week later, Fergus came around to where I was working to inform me he had been sprayed.  He just pawed me to get my attention and looked intently at me until I figured out the problem.  I saw the spray before I smelled it.  An oily streak down his face between his eyes.  At least it wasn't 2 in the morning and I had tomato juice on hand. I got the juice and started trying to work the tomato juice onto his face without getting into his eyes.  He was lucky he didn't get sprayed in the eyes.  It temporarily will blind an animal.  Fergus seemed remorseful, penitent, apologetic, and glad I was doing something about the stink.  The kids watched me from the open sliding door.  I was slathering the dog and lecturing him on the point that we leave the black and white stinky kitties alone when the critter himself came around the corner of the deck. I remember a feeling like I imagine the cold hand of death would feel. I tried not to squeal, scream, or otherwise frighten the skunk. I did fiercely whisper to the kids to get away from the sliding door so they wouldn't get the skunk disturbed  enough to fire at the house.  The screen was not going to stop the spray.  Mean while, I held Fergus' head in my hands and had him look at me.  He was wondering what was up, but border collies will obey anything their master tells them. I was afraid if he saw the skunk, he would bark and then get us both sprayed.  I watched the skunk doing skunk-like things.  It was digging around the foundation looking for goody grubs to eat and it worked it's way around the foundation which made an "L".  Poke here, dig there, nose the soil to lay bare a tasty morsel, and then quickly eat it. It took its time like there was nothing to hurry for. You know the term: sweating bullets?  I did that. I prayed to EVERY deity I could think of.  Meanwhile, the critter came closer to the end of the foundation where, in just  a few feet from where the foundation gave out, Fergus sat, and I kneeled, me,  openly grovelling to the fates asking them to spare us.I tried to cut deals, I made promises all of which got more and more frantic as the skunk got to the end of the foundation and the choice was continue around the corner or walk straight ahead within inches of us.  What did it choose? To my horror, it spotted us or smelled the tomato juice and waddled over to us.  I began sweating mortar shells and started making pitiful little noises because of the hyperventilating. Fergus saw it out of the corner of his eye but I wouldn't let him turn his head.  The skunk boldly walked up to the anxious dog and whimpering woman, smelled the dog's side, and then tested him with a bite.  That broke the spell. I was on my feet hollering, I turned the dog loose, it was every critter for him or her self. The skunk jumped back, in surprise from the dead thing he was going to munch for lunch just came to life in a whirl of fur, feet, yelps, screams, and pounded away at a furious pace.  I turned to look and the skunk was running towards us.  The kids say the sound I made was inhuman when I saw this. I don't remember anything other than I hoped the dog would round on it to slow it down.  He was vaccinated for rabies, I wasn't.  The skunk went under the deck and Fergus beat me to the back door. I think he thought I should protect him.  We cowered in the house until it was time for Fergus to get a rabies booster in case the skunk was rabid. The dog and I crept timidly out of the house and bolted for the car.

The skunk? Upon reflection, I don't think it was rabid.  It was acting normal, doing skunk things including investigating something it thought dead.  It ran towards us because it wanted to get under the safety of the deck. A skunk bite warranted a rabies booster for the dog and would have been the series of shots for me if I had been bitten. It is better to be on the safe side. The skunk didn't hang around any more and  it moved away from the place where the dead come back to life in a screaming flurry of fur and human.  Fergus never tangled with a skunk again. The beagle on the other hand..., well, they aren't the most intelligent breed.

Bailey is what is called a big beagle around here.  She is the largest of the breed standing at 24 inches and weighing over 50 pounds. I have heard people who know dogs  call her a harrier beagle. They have more stamina than other beagles, being built much like a quarter horse. Anyway, my son was taking her for her nightly walk, on a leash, when she lunged at something in the shadows, grabbed it, shook it, and spit it out in a hurry.  My son watched the cute little baby skunk running off with its tail still cocked. Which caused him to run off dragging the dog behind him.  The juicing commenced which was more difficult than juicing the collie. Bailey is the definition of a chow hound. She eats anything and everything to great excess if allowed. She was licking the tomato juice off  just as fast as I was applying it. Being a baby, the skunk had a little to squirt as compared to an adult. So we tried to console ourselves with it could have been worse. We suffered through the post skunk stage and life went on.

The next year, Bailey tried to wreak revenge on the next skunk, but, as is the nature of the beast, the skunk let fly and Bailey got it again.  Skunks 2::Bailey 0.  That was more of a pain just because it was later at night and none of us wanted to deal with it. The third time was early this summer.

My son went out onto the back porch to get something. He did not bother to dress nor turn on a light. I was puttering around in the house and heard a panic frenzy on the back porch, heard clearly because he didn't shut the door into the house. Bailey raced to the porch and a few seconds later came running back drooling and dripping, and reeking of skunk. I feared the worst.  It was on the back porch and the door to the house was open. I walked to the door, looked down at a half grown skunk proceeding to rip into a bag of garbage which my son had left there instead of taking it to the can as I had asked. I slowly shut the door which resulted in the skunk getting bumped on the head.  About that time, the boy hurtled into the house through the front door, in his underwear,  breathlessly shrieking there was a skunk on the back porch and he had almost stepped on it. His main worry was that he had left the back door open to the house and was afraid the skunk came in.  I laid his fears to rest and told him we would just leave it to finish his supper and it would go the way it came in.  That's when he told me he had shut the outside door and the skunk was trapped. Mean while, Bailey was writhing around on her bed trying to get the stink off.  We stood looking at each other realizing someone would have to open the door to let it out.  Let me make it clear that it is very difficult to think clearly with your eyes and throat stinging, your stomach churning, and you are not sure dinner is going to stay down.  He reprimanded me for leaving the outside door open when I brought in the laundry and I reprimanded him for not taking the garbage to the can. That out of the way, we sprung into action and juiced the the dog.  The only place it could be smelled was around her mouth. We realized she had taken the whole shot straight into her mouth. At that moment, she became a martyr and instead of being angry at her for getting it again, she became the hero. Bailey may have kept it out of the house. If it had come in, we would have had to leave the house and hope the critter wandered back out again or risk hunting it down in the house and getting more spray in the house.

Who opened the back door to let the skunk out?  Mom of course. A 14 year old has a social life and smelling of skunk just couldn't be tolerated. Mom's life is boring and if she smelled like skunk for awhile, it wouldn't be as drastic. Bailey didn't smell of skunk almost immediately after the juicing which further confirmed it for me that she had gotten it  in the mouth. The back porch and the rest of the house was not as lucky. Where she dripped and drooled reeked throughout the house. It is very difficult to find the spots on a wood floor by smell because the entire atmosphere was noxious and that's all a human could smell.  The cat, on the otherhand would stop and sniff areas which I would then tomato juice. It was sort of a cat scan.  She would walk around and sniff different spots which I would clean.  Weeks later, it could still be smelled, but at least wasn't nauseating.

A few weeks after the event, we went to a local, large mall.  I stopped in the bookstore to browse a little and I noticed every time I stood still, I could faintly smell skunk.  It was about that time my son came up and whispered to me that he could smell skunk every time he stood still. We looked at each other and determined the only thing to do was to keep moving.  It must have been on our shoes.

So, what have we learned from this? The obvious thing about the back doors being shut and garbage put in the can and because this seems to be at least annual event, I investigated other forms of skunk odor removal. Below is the recipe that has the best reputation.  I haven't had a chance to try it yet...probably next summer, but it comes very highly recommend and is said to be more effective than tomato juice.
1quart of 3 percent  hydrogen peroxide, one quarter cup baking soda, and 2 tablespoons dish washing liquid. Use a very large bucket to mix it in because as soon as the baking soda and peroxide mix, it creates a violent reaction.  This is what we want.  Use it while it is foaming because the oxygen released is what actually neutralizes the odor. It is said to work on clothes, humans, and other surfaces.

May you never be in need of this formula.

Succesfull Living With a Cat

First, a cat is a cat.  This may seem obvious but there are certain things one needs to realize about them.  They come across as arrogant and aloof.  Felines seem wicked because they like to play with unfortunate critters they have caught. Cats seek to please only themselves and consider the family they live with to be their minions whose only goal in life is to wait upon the cat.  After all, a female cat which is not neutered is referred to as a queen.  How appropriate is that! How successfully a cat enslaves it's minions is definitely up to the minions. If you can tolerate it's yowling when it wants something, you can make it wait for it.  One does not have to drop everything and wait upon the cat. Remember, you are a human, top of the food chain, our species dominates the world, and it is a cute, lovable, noisy, mammal that really is hard to refuse.  But, you do have the option of not being a slave to it.  Be strong, it doesn't hurt to let the cat wait a few minutes.


Cats are not really arrogant. They just don't care about humans the same way as dogs do.  Their species has associated with humans for thousands of years but it is not a social species to begin with. Dogs on the other hand are. The family becomes the dog's pack.  Cats like our company, they just don't express it the same way as dogs.  If they did not like us, they wouldn't live with us.  They can be independent as long as they know how to hunt.  House cats that never had a mother feed them wild critters rarely know how to hunt.  While going to college, I worked on dairy farms where unwanted cats were dropped off.  No extra cat one day, the next a terrified, new cat.  It  was pitifully obvious they were terrified, out of their element in this noisy, dangerous environment where they didn't know how to get food other than have a human give it to them. Even if the farm help fed the farm cats cat food, the new cat didn't know where it was and if it tried to eat, the other cats bullied it away.  The farm cats did not like an intruder and were constantly fighting with and hurting it.  Dropping off an unwanted cat on a farm becomes the most inhumane thing anyone could do to a cat.  Drop offs usually lasted a week, maybe two before they died in some horrific way involving machinery. They rarely lasted long enough to fit in and death even by being mangled in machinery was better than what life they were living.

Aside from the horrors of unwanted cat drop offs, it was on these farms that I saw cats behaving in a more natural way.  Mothers would bring their kittens mice from the field and they called their babies with a special call.  Kittens would come running from every where.  The mother would drop the live mouse in their midst and go back out for more.  The kittens learned to hunt by stalking and "playing" with the poor mouse. When adult cats do this, they are just being a kitten again.  They do not have any feelings of remorse because they are cats, not people, and the mouse is just lunch. I can't remember the last time I felt remorse for a sandwich.    I don't usually play with my sandwich before I eat it, but I definitely don't feel remorse.

We had a cat who adopted us. His name was Lester.  Actually, his name was Lester, Lord of All Carlisle.  We lived in Carlisle at the time he came to us.  One day he just appeared in our sheep barn.  He had moved in from the farm just up the road.  I recognized his looks as resembling those of cats that lived there.  He was a good looking cat.  Gray tiger with white markings on his chest and feet. He was somewhat friendly so we took him in.  It didn't take too long to figure out Lester wasn't quite right. He wasn't a loving cat. He tolerated attention and had such a quiet purr you needed a stethoscope to hear it. He showed affection by biting and putting his paw on your nose. He would stretch up to do this if you were sitting down.  If someone was sitting on the couch and he was on the back of it, he would grip their head in his paws, claws extended so the victim couldn't get away and then chew lovingly on their hair.   The older he got the less clean he was.  The only thing he would clean was his face and butt. Everything else in between was very much like a rancid dog. He was an old poop, but he was our old poop so I kept taking care of him...when he was around.  Lester often disappeared for several weeks if not months at a time. He would come back like it had only been since that morning he had been away.  It wasn't like having a "real" cat.  I wanted one that would sleep contentedly on my lap and purr with the power of a motor boat. Lester wasn't a total dud.  The one thing he was excellent at was hunting.  He caught and killed all manner of rodents including rats and weasels. It's a rare cat that will take on a rat because they are large and can be quite aggressive.  I was absolutely astounded over the weasels. They are small, very vicious, predators known for killing chickens, an animal very much larger than they. A really tough match for a cat.  He earned his keep when he killed weasels.  They were attacking our chickens and if he was brave enough to tackle a weasel, a small, but vicious predator, I would continue to take care of him.


During that time, my oldest son was almost one and a half  and Lester seemed pretty tolerant of him.  We wanted a border collie so got a pup we named Fergus.  Lester treated the puppy like his pet.  When he first saw Fergus, he acted happy like: oh, thank you, you got me a puppy. Years went by and we added another son to the household.  This time, the new baby made just too much noise and Lester moved out and wouldn't come into the house.  He would eat outdoors, sleep outdoors, and would just come around to show you the frog he had just caught.  The situation was definitely like not having a cat. We moved to another location. By that time, the baby was a toddler and not quite so noisy so Lester decided to move back into the house.  It was while we were there that I went to a farm to get a real cat. The kids on the farm brought her out to us. A pretty little female kitten marked light gray and white.  They told us she was from a line of loving, great cats.  She came home with us and my three year old named her Elmer.


Elmer had all the barn cat maladies...ear mites, worms, fleas and after getting all that cleared up, she tried to fit into the household.  Fergus let her know immediately who was boss.  He picked the tiny kitten  up in his mouth and terrorized it and me by growling and gnawing at the little thing.  He dropped her and she scuttled under the couch only to come out less than a minute later, unhurt but soaked with saliva from the dog.  She walked up to the dog and rubbed against him.  You're the boss, I'm the cat, I'll remember that.  After that was settled, she decided if Fergus was the boss, she was the next in line.  It didn't matter that Lester had been with us for years, it was her house.  I would look into a room to see Lester trying to walk through with a kitten holding on to his neck and chewing on his ears.  He was a real trooper. He just kept walking with his head to one side weighed down by Elmer chewing and just tried to ignore her.  He could have really hurt her, but he didn't.  Lester finally  had enough and moved down cellar.  He became like a weird guy that lives in the cellar and because he never comes up, he gets weirder. Lester didn't want to leave it. Took his meals there, had a litter pan, and presumably hunted rodents and slept.  If he needed something, a paw would come under the door and bat around to get our attention.  Periodically, I would eject him from the cellar to get some fresh air. Elmer ruled the house, or as much as Fergus would let her.

Elmer has been my good friend, now,  for 11 years and though we've had our squabbles, she and I are pals. Not so much with the kids.  The secret to a good relationship with a cat is to be able to read it properly and they had trouble with this.   It can't really talk to you so the way it will let you know you are over stepping bounds is to swat you. But, if you watch carefully, the cat will tell you it's had enough with it's body language. Maybe the ears go back, it's eyes might look evil, and it may twitch its tail.   Most of all, if it ever starts growling with it's ears back, tail whipping from side to side,  and proceeds to hiss, get out of claw range quickly because this is one really ticked off cat and blood is about to be shed...yours.  I was raised to respect the animal and if ever I got scratched or bit, the first question was: What did you do to the cat/dog?  They need their space and they may be "owned" by us but they need to be left alone when they want to be.  One thing to never, ever do to a cat is to pat it like you would a dog. They don't tolerate this well and will shred the hand that is doing it.

Elmer wouldn't bother with my son until both got older.  She sometimes slept on his bed, which he didn't like because if he stretched out his legs, she would attack his feet under the covers.  He tried all sorts of things to make her leave the room, but she wouldn't budge. He eventually found one thing that worked.  He would get up, ask the cat if she wanted to be fed and no matter what time of the night it was, he would trudge downstairs and give her food. This was a mistake.  Elmer soon figured out all she had to do was bat at the boy's feet a little and he would get up and feed her. She soon ruled the night.  When I found out Elmer had enslaved my son, I gave him some hints on how to make her leave. My favorite was to just put a blanket over her. She hates that and will bolt from the room. Now,  if she is in his room, he just cranks up the electric guitar and amp,  and she flies out.

Even at a young age, Elmer was a killer. I read one time that cats are good hunters if their mother feeds them wild meat and shows them how to hunt.  Her mother must have been an excellent hunter as well.  She caught mice, voles, moles, and shrews. She didn't eat the moles and shrews, she acted like they didn't taste good. As she got bigger, she would come home with young rabbits and an occasional adult even though they were her size or bigger. She would give them to our dogs, making the same noises as a mother cat calling her kittens and leaving it to go off and get more.  More than once, she chased a mouse through the house and got it. And more than once she brought one of her little playmates into the house to play with. I  issued an ultimatum that no one was to let her in unless her mouth was checked first. None of Elmer's playmates, living or dead, were allowed in the house. The one rodent she wouldn't tackle was a rat. She saw one in a trap and was obviously frightened of it.  Rats were Lester and Fergus' domain. 

As long as she caught rodents, I was happy. I was intensely unhappy when she caught birds.  Elmer knew of my displeasure because she would hide the fact she had a bird.  She was always very proud of the rodents and always brought them home to show us before she ate them. If I saw her with a bird, I would take it from her and if it was still alive, let it go.  Oh, the murder in that animal's eyes!  One time I did this and the look I got was downright evil. About half an hour later I came out of the house to find a headless bird, still warm, on the back porch.  My older son thought it was Elmer's way of flipping me the bird.  Whether or not it was, I got the message.  There, let's see you let  that one go.  Another time, she was behind the greenhouse and came around the corner with feathers stuck to her face. Bird? What bird?  I wasn't eating bird.  Nope, no bird here.  One day, before she was fully grown, I saw her stalking a wild turkey.  These are huge birds and that didn't seem to matter to Elmer.  It was a bird and she was going to get it. I scared it off because I could just see Elmer leaping on it and the turkey flying away with her clinging to it's back. 

So, what is the relationship we have with cats?  They depend on us to give them shelter, food, warmth, and scratches about the neck and ears.  We have the opposing thumb thing going on, they don't.  We have to open doors for them to let them in and out...which if you own a cat, you know this is frequently.  And if it's raining or snowing, they stop dead in the doorway, curl their tail and won't go out.  At this point, gently but firmly nudge them out with your foot. Or, if they are like Elmer, if they see it is miserable, snowy weather out the front door, she goes to the back door to be let out.  When the door is opened she seems disappointed because it's the same weather out the back door too. We save them when they get stuck in trees, from dogs chasing them, and other cats beating them up. We buy their favorite food so they don't have to eat something with hair on it.  Though I have often wondered where a cat would get shrimp and salmon in the wild. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to have moist mouse in a pouch or rat in a tin? We make sure their litter box is clean and we throw toys for them to play with.  What do we get in return?  A really good friend who may keep the rodent population down in the house. One who likes to snuggle up to you to share warmth and  show how contented they are by purring like a motor boat. If they are like Elmer, they want to get up on a shoulder when it's cold to wrap themselves around someone's neck...and stick cold paws against the human to warm them.  In a lot of ways, cats are like babies.  They are loud, yowling things that demand something from you, but they are cute, funny, entertaining, warm, and very loving when they want to be...as long as you learn to read their moods to know how far you can go with them.