Bah Hum-pug

Well... Bailey did it again. Christmas Eve night, 11:45 PM. Ryan and Bailey are outside running around on the hill in our backyard. I'm inside, feeding Taylor. All of a sudden Ryan comes running in the house and says "there's a skunk out there!" I ask "Oh no...did Bailey get sprayed?" Then Bailey comes racing down the hill into the house... and there's NO QUESTION that he got sprayed. He reeked so bad that our eyes were watering. The whole house instantly filled with the horrible skunk smell! Worse than that, Bailey's eyes were shut tight and we knew that the skunk had gotten him in the eyes.

So Ryan, who's still dressed in his nice church clothes, takes Bailey into the bathtub and is trying to rinse him off. He has the door closed, but I can hear Bailey's "toenails" frantically trying to claw his way out of the tub. Meanwhile, I can't really go anywhere because I'm still feeding Taylor, so I fire up the laptop and google "dog got sprayed by a skunk". I find a recipe for a "de-skunker", and it just so happens that we have the ingredients we need: baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, and dish soap. Good thing, because by this time it's after midnight on Christmas Eve, and no stores are open!

So I mix up this "concoction" and go into the bathroom. The bathroom smells so bad... the best comparison we can think of is burnt plastic, the skunk smell is extremely potent in a confined space. (2 days later, we're still not using that bathroom because it still smells!) Bailey hates baths on a "good day", so you can only imagine how much he loves this. Ryan and I were both trying to hold him down and put the mixture on his fur. Luckily Bailey's eyes had started to open, but the whites of his eyes were pure red. I was trying to get his eyes under the water to flush them out, but he was jerking away and kept hitting his head on the water spout. Argh!

After the impromptu bath, he was running around the house, rolling on our rugs and trying to rub his face on the rugs. I called the emergency vet to see what they suggested. Oh, and by the way... a trip to the animal ER costs a minimum of $500! I didn't expect anyone to answer the phone on Christmas Eve at about 12:30 AM, but thankfully someone did. She said that there was no need to bring him in. She suggested the same bath mixture we had already given him, and she said he probably wouldn't be interested in eating or drinking for a while. His eyes might be painful, but it wouldn't permanently affect his sight.

So my mom and sister were supposed to drive 8 hours the next morning to come to our house for Christmas. I called them in the middle of the night to tell them that they probably shouldn't come. Our house was just filled with the horrible smell... and Bailey still stinks too. No matter that we had cleaned the house from top to bottom, purchased enough food for a large Christmas dinner, put up all of our decorations etc. This was also Taylor's first Christmas, which my mom was specifically hoping to attend. Bah Hum-pug, Bailey! We celebrated alone. :(

My mom and sister are still coming, but they're coming for New Years instead. And 2 days later, Bailey doesn't smell that bad... but he doesn't smell that GOOD either. The skunk smell is either out of our house... or we're just used to it! I'm sure we will be telling this story of "Taylor's first Christmas" for years to come!