De-Skunking Recipes... 
In honor of River,
Tova, Gus and Frosty . . .
and their close encounters of the stinky kind . . . did I forget anyone?
This is what many grooming shops use. It works best if done first:
- 1 quart FRESH 3% hydrogen peroxide
- 1/4 cup baking soda
- 1 teaspoon liquid soap (Dawn is best and gentle)
Mix together. While it's still bubbling, scrub mixture into dog's coat and let stand five minutes. Rinse thoroughly with clean water. (3% strength (ordinary drugstore variety) peroxide will not affect coat color)
Other emergency skunk remedies:
- Tomato Juice (the most 'well-known' remedy; will turn your dog pink)
- Tomato Paste (some find they can work with this better)
- Wash nose with Vanilla Extract (whose nose? )
Commercial Products not exactly designed for Skunk Spray - but they work
- Fels Naptha Laundry Soap
- Massengil Deuche (some say this works best)
- Skunk Kleen® (available at pet shops)
- Lemon Juice (afterwards - to make it more bearable)
Deodorizing the House
- Circulate fresh air through the house and have plenty of patience
- Room-Air Ionizers / Ozone Generators are supposed to help
- Boil vinegar - it will be strong, but after the vinegar odor clears the skunk odor should be gone too
- Place a few bowls of fresh dry ground coffee around the house
Mythbusters Test Skunk Remedies
Mythbusters is a show on Cable TV's science channel that proports to bust myths - and what gets rid of the odor-de-skunk has plenty of myths.
In the tradition of the stinky pigs, as they said, Jamie and Adam volunteered to get skunked in order to test various stink remedies. The only problem was it's a lot harder to get skunked than expected. Adam said, they must have encountered "Buddha reincarnated as a skunk" because even though Critter control brought by three different skunks, Jamie and Adam were not able to get any of the three skunks to spray even though they jumped around, taunted and battered their cages. They even tried synthetic skunk spray, but it loses its pungency fairly quickly and was no match for the "real thing".
They finally got some skunk spray by releasing the third skunk in the women's bathroom (note: why the WOMEN's bathroom???). After trying a couple of the remedies, they had to revert to the synthetic spray for some of the testing. Scottie Chapman was the official smell tester. A skunk's spray is made up of 'thiols', which is responsible for some of the bad smell of decomposing flesh and feces.
Results of the various cleansers they tried:
- Tomato juice: smelled like a "bloody mary," but no skunk. plausible
- Beer (MGD): used to cleanup bathroom where skunk sprayed. "Smells like the men's room at a dive bar." busted
- Douche: Adam took a swig to verify that it's composed vinegar and water. "Not so fresh." - and busted
- Hydrogen peroxide + baking soda + liquid dish soap: it worked. Apparently the mixture releases oxygen compounds that bond with thiols and neutralize their smell. confirmed
- Commercial skunk remover: worked, but not as well as the hydrogen peroxide mixture. ok
And just for fun....the
words to the music...let your Mal sing along too...WOO WOO
You have to laugh, so you don't cry!
I'm a little striped
skunk,
Sleeping under someone's bunk.
No one wants to play with me.
I'm as smelly as I can be.
Pee - yew, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,
Skunk attack!
Pee - yew, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,
Skunk attack!
Pee - yew!
