All caught up? Alrighty then.
Saturday Milca, a friend and I went hiking, as it was Milca’s last day in the country before taking her 17 day trip to Argentina. We hadn’t been hiking in some time, and we both were looking forward to it, as were the dogs.
The weather was nice, and the temperature had cooled down, as we went in the late afternoon while the sun was still up, but not over our heads. We went to our normal spot, “The backdoor to Millard” as I call it, and trekked on. We were about 2 miles in when Milca noticed that Louie may have had a run in with a bird in the bushes, as he was in some high brush near the stream, and something appeared to have fled the scene leaving Lou. We moved another hundred yards or so when we all noticed a pungent smell that we guessed was something decomposing (plants/animals/etc.). Since we didn’t want to smell that anymore, nor did we want to smell it again, we turned around to head back, only the smell seemed to follow us, even uphill. So, the first thing we did was check the dogs. Joni was fine, but Lou… well, he wasn’t.
Skunk.
If you’ve passed a dead skunk on the road you think you know what skunk smells like. The thing is, you don’t. Those skunks were likely run over by a car, and the smell is the glands and whatnot rotting in the open air. This is drastically different from a live skunk spraying its victim directly.
So, the friend and Milca couldn’t bear the smell, nor did they want to risk having Lou touch them and rubbing the smell on to them. I then started phase 1 of Man Job 3.0; I put Lou on his leash, and hiked 20-30 feet behind them, which was nice… for them. I was in the wake of the foul stench, which was slowly getting me high as nail polish might.
We got to the car, with only one small incident where Lou bumped in to our friend, and then we drove home. If the smell on the trail was bad, the smell in the car was horrific. Even with the windows down and Lou restrained from coming to the front of the car, it was awful. When we got home at about 7 or so, I left for the grocery store to get tomato soup (a good remedy for removing the smell). I then came back home and proceeded with phase 2 of Man Job 3.0, the washing of the dogs.
I covered the dogs in tomato soup, who gave me looks as though I was out of my mind. They’d had baths before on countless occassions, but this was strange for them (and me).
The tomato soup bath did help, but Lou still smelled. The next morning, before leaving, Milca gave them each another bath with dish soap, which helped some more but Lou still smelled. The bathing from the night before left my hands smelling of skunk for a while, but it did come off with rubbing alchohol.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve sait it a thousand times, “Fuckin’ Lou.”