Going In Circles

Finally, a day I could concentrate on and hopefully finish the paperwork that had me going in circles.  Around noon, Bess and I went out on the deck for a breather.  I located Stump under the pine, evidently her new digs (and I do mean digs), checked the slope to the woods for predators in the weeds, and looked over to what should have been the empty chicken pen.  Empty, that is, except for the many ground squirrels that use it as a play yard.  Hmmm, that's an awfully big squirrel.  Then said squirrel turned and I saw the white stripes.  Well, isn't that just great.  We haven't had skunks in the area for ages, for which I've been grateful.  In the case of skunks, Bess is a slow learner and got herself skunked (sprayed) seven times in one year.  Keeping an eye on Pepe Le Peau (the romantic French skunk in Walt Disney's 1945 cartoons), I noticed he wasn't looking for a way out, he was just running laps, going in circles.  He'd made about twenty circuits when I called Animal Services.  This was not normal behavior and, with skunks, one worries about distemper and rabies.  Of course, like the tooth that stops aching as soon as you get in the dentist's chair, while I was talking to the nice lady, Pepe disappeared.  "Call me back if you see him again."

With the immediate danger gone (I figured Pepe had gone off into the woods or out in the fields), Bessie and I went out to the sunny end of the deck.  We were quietly enjoying the warmth when Bess took off like a shot and around the corner.  Oh crum!  I went after her and heard rustling behind the hedge in front of the house, but Bess was in the walkway and I thought she'd just gotten a whiff of the intruder.  I was reaching for her collar when she ran to the other end of the hedge.  Need I say it?  Bess backed out shaking her head and stinking to high heaven and I grabbed her and put her in the house (big mistake, but I had no option).  I had to see where Pepe would go.  As I was calling Animal Services again, Pepe lay down, obviously ill.  This time I got the answering machine, oh goody.  Just then my milk customer drove up and scared Pepe, who went off around the corner of the deck.  It would have been funny, but I wasn't laughing.  I told Milk Guy not to let Bess out and I followed the skunk, who had holed up under the stairs to the deck.

Left alone and trying to get the smell off, Bess had rubbed on all the furniture in the living room, along the wall in the hallway, and around the bed in the bedroom.  The house absolutely reeked.  I quickly concluded my business with Milk Guy (who is a great talker) and hustled him out the door.  I needed to get Bess into a bath!  This was easier said than done, as the front bathroom has glass doors around the tub and the tub in my bathroom is exceptionally deep.  Smallish as she is, Bess is no lightweight.  It was hard enough to get her into the tub, but lifting a dripping wet dog up and out was almost impossible, but I struggled and got it done.  I had used the magic deskunker formula (water, hydrogen peroxide, and Dawn dish soap) on Bess and sprayed the house with Febreze.  It helped, but there's still enough odor to make your eyes water.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, as they say, I went back to going in circles of my own with the ferschluggen paperwork, going out periodically (without Bess) to make sure that Pepe was staying put.  The poor creature was obviously sick and probably dying.  He moved to a couple of places, but stayed under the deck.  Nearing the end of work hours, I again called Animal Services and got a real person.  They'd evidently not listened to my message where I'd left my house phone number and address.  They had called the cell phone, but I don't answer calls with "No caller ID" as they're usually robocalls.  It was, of course, too late to send anyone out by then.

Bessie still has the scent of skunk on her, as Ralph approaches her cautiously, sniffs at her face, and walks away loudly saying the cat equivalent of "Whew, you stink!"

Until Pepe is removed, when Bess has to go out on a potty run, she goes out on a leash (as we did in the dark at 5:30 this morning).

It was, if not good, a very eventful day.