Skunk Works
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My little 16-pound dog Godzilla got tangled up with a skunk last night. On the back porch. With all our windows open.I was bathing her until 1 a.m. with a concoction I found on the Internet (skunk bath). It removed maybe 15% of the odor—from the dog but not the house. Even the food inside the refrigerator stinks. I may have discovered the "Only natural diet plan on the market today that really works. Really!"
The dog? She puts the whole event into the Great Fun category, right up there with the $600 Chicken Incident. Even now she's searching for her elusive neighbor, the striped combatant, the evening matador.
El Skunko image from National Park Service.
Comments
I say give the skunk a mop and bucket and let him clean up
I've often thought that if human beings had been born with skunk-like spraying abilities we never would have had reason to invent guns, bullets, and other killing devices. I mean, really, if a small, cutesy black-and-white skunk can keep away powerful predators like fox, coyotes, and humans with only stink... well, that seems a pretty peaceful way of doing it.
The irony is that the skunk is just as affected by its putrid odor as everyone else. A skunk family lives in a place until the odors accumulate so much that they can't stand it and decide to move out. Of course, human violence accomplishes the same thing. But for some reason it's more difficult for us humans to understand Mahatma Gandhi's famous "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" than it is to know that, as a Zen Buddhist might put it, "Stink touch all."
P.L. Frederick (SMALL & big)