I had to sit out here and guard this from stinky puppy who still has a lingering skunk smell despite having had two baths and still isn’t allowed in the house:

What you’re looking at is a marble tower. This is a toy my kids enjoyed for a number of years when they were young. You can build it and connect it into different shapes and sizes and let little marbles run all along the various slides and contraptions. It’s been sitting in the basement taking up space so when I saw the neighbour two houses up the street, I asked him if he was interested in the toy. He has a preschooler and a toddler.

He said yes!

Bye bye marble tower…

I wanted to hose it down because it was a bit dusty and figured in the hot sunshine it won’t take long to dry. But… Puppy. 🙄

I have to guard every single thing from this sneaky, and now stinky, Beagle. 😐

Since you know that I am prone for drama (apparently 🙃) I will outline to you what happened last night. Even though I wasn’t present when the skunk sprayed the dog. You see I escaped into the bedroom prior to 8:00 p.m. and closed the door. I craved solitude. I read for a bit and then dozed off a little. An hour later or so every light outside the door was turned on and I heard all kinds of commotion. I yelled at them to turn the lights off when they told me the dog had been sprayed by a skunk.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the skunk was a mom protecting her babies. Maybe she was hanging around in the next door neighbour’s abandoned and neglected yard. Supposedly one of the family members is coming back from overseas sometime before August but in the meantime the yard is so overgrown it’s the perfect place for wildlife to have babies in.

The previous owner, an elderly lady, had an award-winning flower garden back there. But flower gardens need tending to and nurturing which means you can’t just disappear and never come back. I don’t know if that was the original plan but when covid happened the current owners might have gotten stuck in China for that reason.

I don’t really know if there is a skunk with babies over there, I’m just saying it’s possible. I have seen groundhogs over there… Aka woodchucks.

So anyway I’m lying in my bed trying to relax with the window open because it’s not humid for a change when I start to smell the skunk stench. This isn’t unusual as there’s quite a bit of wildlife in the area. But the smell got stronger and stronger so when I open the door and asked what all the commotion was about it was clear that it was the dog that brought the stench into the house.

The teen girl and her dad were googling to find out what to use to wash the dog with. Because it was getting dark they brought him in the house which was the first mistake. I purposely tied some rope on the upper deck railing to tie the dog to if ever there’s a situation like this. But it didn’t occur to them to do that. They were probably worried the skunk was going to come and attack him again (unlikely, but I get it). Anyway once the dog was in the house so was the smell.

Next they had to get all the suggested materials to wash the dog with. There’s a small bottle of vinegar I use downstairs for laundry which they went to get even though there’s a huge jug of vinegar underneath the kitchen sink. But it turned out they decided not to use vinegar after all. This website they consulted said to use baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and dish soap.

The dog was sitting in the hall just outside the bedroom. The gate prevented him to have the run of the house. He was very perplexed and confused looking that all the doors were closed and the gate was up and he couldn’t come inside. Beagles love stinky stuff especially when they wear it as perfume.

He was even more confused when I refused to pet him…

While my daughter and her dad were getting the bath ready I went and collected old dog towels and removed my towel from the bathroom. I also pointed them in the direction of where the hydrogen peroxide was stored. Then I pointed to the vinegar under the kitchen sink and told them to put the other bottle back downstairs.

While they were busy washing the dog I moved the kennel/crate Tucker sleeps in from the bedroom and placed it in the hallway. No way was that stinky dog going to sleep beside my bed.

Then I went back to bed and tried to sleep. Didn’t quite work though because the house was smelly… So I cracked the window open more and turned on the fan on the dresser to keep the air moving.

I thanked my lucky stars that it wasn’t humid out and we were able to keep the windows open and the air conditioner off.

Anyway this morning I did laundry; all the dog’s bedding and towels, plus the clothes they were wearing when they were washing the dog last night.

While I was out grocery shopping this morning they washed the dog again with a special shampoo they managed to pick up earlier at a store that is now open, thankfully, finally. We are in stage 1 now of lifted restrictions… It means we don’t have to do curbside pickup and can go in the store. There are huge lineup still because they only allow 15% capacity… But the pet store which had been essential mostly throughout the lockdowns wasn’t bad. And he had ordered it online so he was just able to get inside and pick it up quick.

So now Mr. Almost A Year Old was crashed below my chair. He is now experienced with skunk spray. Another first for him.

He’s still not allowed in the house which confuses him a little. But he seems to like the cool grass so it’s not the end of the world.

I have a little Crock-Pot going with water and tea tree oil. Hopefully that will clear the air a little bit as well inside the house.

So there you go another day of drama… Now I got to go check on the laundry and pack up the marble tower and drop it on the front step of my neighbour’s house. And then…

Time will tell. Let’s hope nothing else happens and I get to have a relaxing rest of Saturday.