SKUNKED!

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The Spotted Owl Survey is in progress again this year and Peggy, Dallas, and I have been helping out a bit.

I discovered just how out of shape I am on Thursday night when Doug (the ‘Mountain Goat’ biologist) led the way up a trail that gained 2,000 ft. elevation in about a mile or so. Fortunately it was dark, cool, and drizzly or I might have dropped dead right there. I can walk for miles on relatively flat ground, even at 7,000 feet, but the steep stuff is a real challenge at the end of my winter atrophy and fat accumulation.

Doug and I visited five owl territories between 6:00 P.M. and 2:30 A.M. Thursday, and five more on Friday, between 6:30 P.M. and 2:15 A.M. Thursday we found owls in three of the five territories, but Friday, in the badly burned territories near Lake Arrowhead, we found none.

By Saturday night my bones & muscles were begging for mercy, and Peggy wanted her turn in the barrel, so she, Doug, and Dallas went out and got more than they bargained for.

They visited seven territories between 6:30 P.M. and 12:45 A.M. and got skunked, literally skunked, and no birds!

I woke up when Peggy came in, hearing the shower going, and smelling this weird stench in the house that I thought was some bizarre herbal concoction Peg was brewing up. I heard Dallas whimpering outside the door so I stumbled downstairs, let him in, gave him a pat ot two, and crawled back up to bed.

But the stench was growing stronger, and now my left hand (the one I patted Dallas with) was reeking with the same odor. That’s when I realized what was going on. I went back down, put Dallas outside again, and by then, found Peg getting out of the shower to tell me of the nights adventures.

At the fourth territory, Dallas took off chasing some critter, when, at the last minute, Doug saw it was a skunk and yelled at Dallas to stop, but it was too late.

The skunk let Dallas have it full-force right in the snout, which stopped the misfortunate dog in his tracks, sending him wallowing and rolling his nose in the dirt to try and rid himself of the stench.

What I can hardly believe is that Doug and Peggy visited three more territories with that reeking dog in the back seat of the car before they headed home. That’s real dedication if you ask me.

Anyhow, Dallas is an outside dog now, for the foreseeable future, and he is obviously not happy with his new fragrance. We can’t pet him, we can’t even put his leash on to take him for a walk until the stench subsides a bit, so I’m going to check the internet to see if there’s a way to get some of the smell off of him.

As you can see in the picture, the poor fellow looks very regretful, and I guess I’ll try and leash him with my gloves on, so I can take him to the lake for a swim. At the moment we can’t even keep the windows open because of the skunky aroma blowing in from Dallas.

I must admit, that's a quite clever defense mechanism those skunks have come up with!

;~(

postscript

For the remedy see post below...