Skunk gunk!!! and ROWDY!!!!

Have you ever plopped down exhuasted after a hectic morning and thought "That did NOT just happen to me!!!"? Well, let me tell you about what "did not" happen to us! :-)

One morning this week I got up at 4 am to sit with my husband at the table and "talk" before he went to work. WHO gets up that early anyway!!! It was still DARK outside!! LOL!

As he was leaving and I was thinking of my bed, he noticed that the horses were not in their pen. The pen that should have ALL the gates shut tight so as to NOT lose any horses in the middle of nowhere Kansas! So I caught a quick nap while waiting for the sun to rise and then woke up the two oldest kiddos and out we went into the....FOG!!!! Let me tell you it isn't any easier to find a black horse in the fog than it is in the dark! Well, we got busy and gathered up some ropes and a feed bucket and started out into the back field hoping that the strange moving thing on the hill behind the wheat field was a miniature horse. At least the kids did anyway, I was sitting on the front porch cheering them on with my head back against the door and my eyes closed! I'm so lazy! :-P I didn't get the chance to sit there long though, for in just a few minutes I was overwhelmed with the nastiest smell on earth and it was getting closer and closer by the second. Next thing I knew, from around the corner of the house came the craziest!, sneezing, snorting sounds and out of the fog came.....ROWDY!!!! UUHHGGGGG!!!! He had been... you guessed it!! Playing with a not so friendly skunk!! He was dripping wet, from skunk spray or dew off the wheat, I didn't know but somehow he thought my lap was the place to go! I jumped up and ran down the side walk while yelling all sorts of commands; "SIT!", "GO LAY DOWN!" "STAY!" !! He figured out that I didn't want him and he sat down looking at me through squinted eyes with the silliest smile on his face. I think he thought it was funny!! Even the kids who were well on the other side of the field had heard me and I could tell even from that distance they had stopped to watch me dance across the yard. Thankfully, they had found two of the three missing horses and it didn't take them long to get back to the yard to find out what all the excitement was about. Of course they didn't really have to ask since they could smell the dog from a mile away!

I sent the kids in a different direction to look for the still missing stallion while I ran to the computer and Googled some skunk gunk removal ideas. After a quick crash course in de-skunking I realized a trip to town was necessary, I don't keep a couple quarts of peroxide handy around the house normally but it just might be a new "norm". I couldn't just use tomatoes and vinegar! Ooh no! The know it all vet online said "You must change the molecules to deodorize the skunk oil!" Of course! What was I thinking! Thankfully, a chemist had a simple recipe for a concoction of some sort that would do such a thing but it came with a nice warning. Two, actually. One warning was that if I didn't wash the dog as soon as possible the likely hood grew that he would smell that way the rest of his life!! The other was, that the potion had once turned a black lab into a yellow one! As Rowdy gazed at me through the window of the closed door, his p'arfume seeping in through the cracks I decided I'd better hurry! I could live with a blond Rottweiler! but, NOT with that smell!

I began thinking about where that horse could be, the kids had come back empty handed. I remembered the neighbor's dog down the road had been barking this morning and since they had horses too, I made a quick decision to see if my roaming stallion had decided to pay the neighbors a visit. We jumped in the van with our horse catching paraphernalia and ran down the road while leaving Rowdy to roll in the wet grass. Sure enough, there was our Tonka Toy!, getting his rear bit by the full size neighbor stallion who did NOT want to share his girl friend. Not that it was likely anyway, since the two horses were several feet taller than my 3' black stud muffin! :-) We finally convinced him that he was not wanted there, which wasn't easy!, he's soo hard headed! Finally the horses were back where they belonged and we were on our way to town to get the ingredients for our science experiment to de-skunk the dog. Once back home our chemistry class began... mixing peroxide, baking soda and liquid degreaser we came up with a foaming wonder to torture the dog with. It was quite a sight too! Me and the kids standing in the back yard pouring foaming goo on a stinky dog sitting in an old claw footed tub. AND!, it was starting to sprinkle!! As in like, the sky got dark and the thunder clouds were rolling in! We finally declared him clean enough and ran in the house to fight over the shower.

By noon, I finally sat down with a glass of tea and watched the rain come down in bucketfuls, having washed the dog, burnt our clothes, taken 3 showers and fed the kids the last of the groceries.....Oh!...groceries!.... I needed to to the grocery store!!!!!

Well, By the time we went to town the rain had slowed to a light drizzle and as we went through town we saw a big sign..."Salvation Army- everything!- 25%-50% Off!" So, we stopped and had some fun! :-) The kids had some money they had earned so not only did they have science/chemistry class, they got math in too. Each kid figuring half of half off the prices of the great bargains they were finding and trying to decide which to spend their hard earned money on! We took our treasures, groceries and bought a "Hot-N-Ready" pizza for the ride home. It turned out to be a great day all in all.

BTW, in case your wondering the goo actually worked and all but the faintest hint of skunk was removed, a second washing later that evening took care of that. He smelled good enough I allowed him back in the house agian. AND.... he is still black and tan, just as a Rowdy dog should be! LOL!

So, that's the story that "did not" happen to us.... but it did! :-)

Photos: Kiddos with Jetterbug, one of our mini-horses. Rowdy, smiling for the camera! and Wild Man and Rowdy laying in Mema and Papa's yard last Christmas.