De-Skunking Our Dogs

It happens whether you like it or not if you own dogs, and spend time outside they are bound to run into a skunk!  At which point you, the owner, becomes an expert on de-skunking his/her pet.  There is tomato juice and for some this seems to work.  I find it too messy and when your dog shakes it looks like you and your dog are in a blood bath.  Of course there is the dish soap, baking soda, and peroxide combo.  This seemed to work well on Tally, and helped Sadie.  Sadie was definitely closest to the skunk's butt and had the smelliest  encounter.

We were mountain biking yesterday up in the Haskill Basin area that we really enjoy.   There was a lot of fresh bear scat. We were pretty sure we would run into a bear.

Oh yum a favorite treat in Montana fresh bear scat!

No it was the small furry black and white beast that caused us to spend the evening trying to de-skunk dogs for a few hours.

Dogs rolling in grass trying to get rid of that nasty smell.

We came to one of the creeks the dogs love to swim in and tried a mud/gravel bath hoping to break up some of the oder.

My poor Sadie got the worse!

This site was helpful in explaining what are the chemicals that make up skunk spray.  My husband teaches chemistry and after some of the treatments we found helped but not a  100%.  He then researched a bit to find out what actually breaks down thiols that makes up skunk spray.  It appears clorox is something that breaks down the thiols.  We sprayed this on to a damp paper towel and then rubbed it on the stinky spots.  This seems to have helped the most.  We are not spraying it directly onto our dog at all.  Sadie still smells but not nearly as bad.  Both dogs are outside today de-fuming.

If anyone knows of anythings that really get rid of the thiols in skunk spray please share!

UPDATED:

I have learned a few more things about the dread skunks spray over the last day and a half.

This is the only site that states you may have to wash your dog 3-5 times to get rid of the smell. 

Thursday night our dogs had the skunk encounter and on Friday they were still smelly but we could live with them.  They spent the day outside de-gassing.  I did use clorox wipes on the very smelly parts and that helped hide the oder for a bit.  Finall,y I tried cooking oil.  I put this on a paper towel and rubbed into the areas that had the strongest oder.  The thought here was that the oil would help to pull the skunk oil out of the dogs coats.  They both smelled like popcorn which is far better than skunk.  The smelly area seemed to smell less.  Today is Saturday and there is a huge improvement in their oder!