The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

Big Lessons Learned from the Canine Trenches

By Kathryn Socie, 9-03-08

Imagine yourself stumbling into a grocery store. Its 2 a.m. and though you wish you had a much better excuse as to why you are there, you don’t have one and you have not been out drinking.  You are slightly disheveled having literally rolled out of bed; your eyes are straining to adjust to the terrible glare of those migraine inducing fluorescent lights.  As you settle into the scene, you hum along to some off rendition of We are the World while strolling down the aisles.  You grab your much needed items and head for the checkout.

Of course, now, you are intercepted by your former employer who just recently had a baby and is driving around with his partner on a late night mission to get said baby to sleep.  He is excited to see you, probably overly so because he doesn’t get out much these days, but his enthusiasm becomes buffered by his sudden realization. Once he finally comes to, notices your odd get-up and, finally, glances down to note the contents of your basket, he struggles to carry on any sort of coherent discussion. Your mind begins to race.  Should you try to explain the situation?

Really, it’s odd enough that you are in a grocery store at this hour, wearing your hair in a wild top-knot, but the proverbial icing on this glorious life experience is the five boxes of Summers Eve and the can of tomato juice you are toting around. 

If you are like me, you continue to talk about what you’re doing with your life, the great people at your new job, some new trails that you’ve been checking out lately, trying not to notice the increasing discomfort of the other party.  If you are like me, your mind begins to cook up all sorts of ways to raise the discomfort level and actually have some fun with this moment. Perhaps you could regale him with tales of a recent emotional break-down and your deep, inner need to freshen up and get clean.  If you are like me, you don’t mess with the poor guy for too long.

Instead, I confess.  My black-and-white dog got into a carcass and picked up a particularly nasty case of the bad meats, so I let him out to take care of business, along with his blue cohort, only to soon discover they had a triplicate tango with a skunk in the backyard.  The skunk won, bouncing away completely unscathed, but the dogs were doused and reeking.

My tried and true remedy (trust me, I’ve tried everything) for de-skunking a dog is, yes, douche.  It works and it works well.  Fido really will never have smelled or felt fresher after a bath in the stuff. The tomato juice trick is utterly useless, but I highly recommend picking up enough for the requisite post-douched-dog bloody Mary, a tried and true remedy for your troubles.  Admittedly, you need several boxes of your favorite flavor of douche, no matter the variety, to rid your dog, let alone two, of the putrid, acrid, awful skunk stench for good, arguing further for the cocktail to help you forget the experience of making a most embarrassing purchase-- in bulk, no less.

So, the next time you are utterly frustrated with your skunked dog try adding in a very large, awkward purchase to your emotional state.  The pain is only temporary and I’m sure there are several major life lessons buried in there somewhere. I have become an expert in humility, to name but one virtue gained, after years of being dogged. 

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