It was bound to happen, with us living at the very edge of Humboldt.
Angus goes out at 10 each night to prepare for a good night’s sleep. When he did Saturday night last, I watched helplessly as he darted from the yard to where a skunk was waddling down the street.
As it is with most dogs, Angus greets another by sniffing its rear end. Maybe there is a genetic quality to that part of body that establishes identity. If that is so, Angus quickly learned there’s more to the rear end of a skunk than that of a dog.
The skunk raised its tail as soon as Angus arrived and, despite my feverishly anxious calls for him to retreat, he took the full brunt of the animal’s defense system. Angus let out a yip and beat it for the house, outrunning another skunk that had emerged from a ditch along the street and was making a bee line for Angus, obviously with offensive intentions.
I sequestered Angus in the garage, while plotting what to do.
Wife Beverly, in Roswell, N.M., suggested bathing him in tomato juice. That’s supposed to neutralize the pungent skunk odor, she said. A text to daughter-in-law Melanie, in Kansas City for ball games, proposed shampooing Angus in a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish detergent. It had worked well on one of her dogs, she said.
I didn’t have tomato juice and Moon’s was closed, but I did have ingredients for Mel’s solution.
Luckily, our twin granddaughters, with their folks out of town, were spending the night. Alayna jumped in, but Emma was too far into dreamland to be of any help.
We built up quite a froth of the peroxide mixture on Angus’ coat while he stood, shaking, in a plastic tote. The solution pretty well turned the trick, although some odor remained, which led us to the lesser-used of our two bathrooms for a thorough shampoo with whatever it is Beverly and I regularly use.
Since then, Angus has taken an oath never again to cozy up to a furry creature with a white stripe down its back.
When a wild turkey hopped onto our back deck and peered in a window Sunday evening — Scout’s honor, that occurred — he paid no mind, wouldn’t even look at it.
