what a nightmare!

last night we were having a nice, relaxing sunday evening. ate breakfast for dinner (YUM!), watched a little tv and were just enjoying the end to a good weekend. i headed to wash my face while lance took the dogs out one last time. over the running water in the bathroom i hear lance yelling my name (well, in a whisper-don't-want-to-wake-the-kiddo-but-really-need-you-ASAP kind of yell).

as i walk into the living room i see him holding dakota by the backdoor...dakota is foaming at the mouth and gagging and his chest is covered in something yellow. all i hear is lance say skunk! at this point we don't even know if gizmo is sprayed or not since he's acting normal. i start googling what to do for dogs sprayed by a skunk. we take them to the laundry room and then decide they just need to be in their kennels until we figure out a plan. at this point we realize gizmo is covered in skunk stink too...ugh! thank goodness lance actually went out with them-we often just open the back door, let them do their business and then let them in a little later...so it could have been much worse!

after a quick call to the emergency vet to figure out if they would be ok besides the stink and some more googling to figure out how to bathe them, we started the baths in the driveway at 11 pm. i'm sure we were a sight to be seen. with a little bit of dawn and 2 containers of baking soda, we scrubbed them down. of course we were just using what we had at 10 pm at night...we were out of hydrogen peroxide (of course that was one of the ingredients people suggested) and the other suggestion was tomato juice, but of course all i had in the pantry was 2 cans of tomato (with garlic and onions...so of course that was out).

so we bathed both dogs, one by one and then took their kennels apart and washed those too. then we had to scrub down the garage floor. we finally came in to start cleaning inside...mopped the floors and then realized gizmo had gotten skunk smell all over the living room rug. so pulled that up and hauled it out the front door at midnight. figured out their dog beds were "contaminated" so those went to the trash.

after de-skunking ourselves and throwing away all towels and clothes that had been used, i finally fell into bed about 1:15 am. and poor lance ended up sleeping in the garage. there was NO way we were letting the dogs back in the house and gizmo decided to start crying/barking in his kennel-he was quite upset about sleeping in the garage and we had no idea how to keep him quiet and not wake tman up so lance was super hubby and bunked in the garage last night.

of course we both still smelt skunk every time we took a breath...not sure if that was in my head/nose or if everything still just stunk. everytime i rolled over in bed, i smelled skunk.

we kicked off this morning with some more mopping and spraying anything and everything that might help with the smell. dogs went off to the groomer for a bath/deskunking shampoo, lance took the rug to a dumpster, we scheduled an electrician to come put up a light in the backyard, and met with 2 cleaning (although it's way more than just cleaning) companies for quotes.

the smell has definitely gotten less as the day has gone on...we've left all the windows open today and had candles burning all day. and you become numb to it. i really thought it was almost totally gone. but we left and ran to walmart for a few things we needed after last night's fiasco, and i nearly fell over when i walked back in the house. the smell is MOST DEFINITELY still here!

so they are coming tomorrow to do a massive clean downstairs with all kinds of special stuff. cleaning floors, carpet in our bedroom and fogging the entire downstairs. the dogs are being boarded until this is all resolved, and i am praying it works because i am tired of smelling skunk and feeling like i'm dirty and stink. the electrician comes thursday to put up a light in the backyard and most importantly, lance is getting his pellet gun back.

next time, skunk, you are going to DIE!