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Sunday, February 5, 2017

What is that funky smell...

Skunk.  Yep, that's right.  After going seventeen years with dogs without an incident, we've had three and two of those were less than ten days apart.  You would think the dogs would be smart enough after the first, and maybe the second time to not go chasing after the 'striped kitty'..  Nope.  And Steel was the culprit all three times.

There are plenty of thing that people claim will get rid of the skunk smell.  I will share with you what we found that works and works well.  We should know.  We've had to use it three times.  Now, keep i mind that a dog who has been skunked will still smell somewhat when they get wet or if you get your face into their coat.  We now have our very own skunk kit in the kitchen which made the second two instances a lot quicker and easier.

Here are the items in our skunk kit.
Nature's Miracle Skunk odor remover (not your regular Nature's Miracle.  This is a different thing entirely)
Dawn dish soap.  (must be Dawn.  Generic dish soap does not have the same detergent content)
A pump sprayer
PVC gloves
Oatmeal dog shampoo
Wash cloth
Slip lead
5 gallon bucket
Hose

Nature's Miracle's Skunk Odor remover and pump sprayer

Step one:  get the dog out of the house or make sure the dog can not get in the house.  I know it will be dark out (skunks are nocturnal) but trust me on this.  Skunk odor is like fried bacon.  It gets in the air and lingers there.  

Step two:  Put the slip lead on the dog and spray them down with the Nature's Miracle Skunk.  Most of the time, your dog gets it in the face.  Do not spray them in the face.  Saturate a washcloth with it and rub down their face.

Step three: If the dog has good recall let them go.  The odor remover has to stay on them for at least five minutes.  e actually played fetch with Steel to keep him busy while the neutralizer does it's work.  
Step four:  Fill the bucket to the point where you can carry it and won't spill it all over with warm water and some Dawn.  If you put the Dawn in first, you don't have to stir it.  Soak the washcloth in the bucket and then dump the rest of the bucket over the dog.  

Step five:  With the gloves on, work the soapy water into the dog's coat.  This is dissolving the oil to make sure it all gets out of the coat  Use the washcloth on the face.

Step six:  Rinse all the soap out. with the hose.

Step seven:  Massage a conditioning shampoo into the dog's coat to get the last of the detergent and solution out and to put some moisture back in the coat.

Step eight:  Rinse again.

Steel.  Skunk hunter extraordinaire.

Because this always happens at night and because it's been really cold, we then followed it up the next day with a trip to the local self service dog wash to make sure everything is out of the coat when we have sufficient light.  Note:  They will not allow your dog in until the worst of the scent has been neutralized and they will know.  Trust me. In fact, most grooming places have the same rule.

The good news is that Rogue is the only one who was smart enough to avoid the skunk every time.  In fact, we tried to gt her out of the back yard while we were hosing down Steel and she jumped the fence... to get back into the yard.

We have been working hard in our Reactive Dog class.  We've started making her work for the fetch that she loves so much   She has to sit, lay down, or touch before we'll throw the ball for her.  Mostly what we're working on is her coming to us and paying more attention to us.  She's been getting a bit spoiled and possessive of things like the bed and this simple thing has just about eliminated that behavior.

She has also been running with some new dogs lately as we go to our favorite off leash forest preserve.  A lot of experience with some new dogs helps.

Rogue and her new friend, Radar

While her off leash manners with other dogs are awesome, her on leash manners still need work  It's a work in progress  We're trying to get her to look to me when she sees other dogs instead of just reacting.  It's a challenge for her and she is exhausted by the time we're done with our one-hour class. 

We'll get there.  I takes time for her to overcome her perception of being trapped when she's on leash and to get her to trust us enough to let us make her decisions for her.  We'll just keep working until we get it right. 



Monday, January 2, 2017

It just might be you

So, the pups were well spoiled on Christmas as usual.  Our holiday card was a huge hit.  It wasn't exactly what I wanted but it was still pretty good.


And appropriate.  Though the naughtiness here was staged.

Speaking of naughtiness, Rogue continues her leash reactivity and the husband and I have decided that we're too close to it to be able to deal effectively with training her out of it alone.  What that means is, it's probably us.  There's no shame in it.  Even the best dog trainers can be blind to how they are affecting their own dogs' behavior.  We're too close and it's often hard to observe the behavior when you're in the middle of it or at the other end of the leash.

So, we start reactive dog class this week.  In preparation, Rogue and I have walked about 8 miles over the past four days to get the edge off her activity level.  Not to tire her out.  It takes a lot more than that, but to take the edge off.  The holidays were hard on them in that our schedule was off and they were home alone a lot more than normal.  Rogue likes her routine and the changes made her crabby and she'd take it out on her siblings.


This is our favorite park.  It's 2 miles of wooded trails that allows dogs off leash.  Not all of our walks were off leash, but many of them were.  Rogue and I did three miles on leash one of the days this past weekend.  Her leash manners were starting to slide.  I'm planning on doing a lot more on leash walking with her while we're attending class.

Rogue flushes out a Zubat while Pokehunting on our walk.

I'm pretty sure a lot of our problem is that she is possessive.  For some reason, on leash, she's more possessive of me than off leash.  It's something we'll be talking about with the trainer in class, but I'm pretty sure it's me or something I'm doing.  I may give her what she wants too often or haven't made her confident enough in my ability to handle situations when she's on leash that she still feels like she has to do something.  She's still adores people but she's still having issues with other dogs.

I'm confident that class will help.  It may be that she's not ever going to be happy around other dogs on leash and that we won't be able to make her a therapy dog.  That would be a shame, but it does take a special kind of personality for that work.  We shall see.

Hope everyone has a great New Year!  I'll keep you updated on our progress at reactive dog class.