I went to sleep last night early. At 1:30 AM, our wonder mutt, Bosley decided he needed to go out to the back yard to piddle. My highly pregnant, extremely groggy wife got up to let him out. We had heard tale of various woodland creatures in our yard, but so far had only encountered a coyote, which was enough for us to decide to proceed with caution in the nighttime piddling hours.
So, here's how the chain of events went down. My wife picks up the dog, holds him in her arms, opens the back door and takes a look around. Again, she is incredibly groggy, and not wearing her glasses, yet still deems it all clear for the puppy dog to venture into the yard. Immediately after she puts him down, he takes off, running and barking at something, of course, at the far end of the yard. As she tries to focus, she sees what can possibly be a nymph rising up, standing with it's arms folded and staring at them. Again, she is still incredibly sleepy because this now made sense. But, something deep inside her tells her, no, this is not a nymph, not a garden gnome, but something to be highly concerned about (although the thought of some enchanted woodland creature prancing around our back yard did give her the weebs)... What ended up portraying itself as something standing was in fact, the skunk's tail... Ready to aim and fire!
She tries to grab the dog, only to have him panic when he realizes that something touches him and he takes off, directly toward the skunk. She is now running barefoot through the backyard, calling for the dog to no avail. Finally after what feels like an eternity, so grabs the dog, turns to go into the house, only to now feel like the skunk is in hot pursuit. She runs back into the house, successfully closing the door, surviving skunk free. Now the questions start. What would we have done if they had both been skunked? I can't put them down, but the smell of skunk coming from my wife and my dog might have been too much to handle. So, we look it up online. We're heading out soon to get hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and a jar to mix it all in, in case we have another close call. Oh yeah... and a flashlight. Go us!
PS. We do live in a major metropolitan area, with skunks, raccoons, possums and coyotes... and apparently enchanted woodland creatures, like nymphs, garden gnomes and fairies.. Go Us.
Soon to come, the skunk cam, critter cam, backyard cam so you can see what may interact with the dog, ma'm.
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