Ok, let ME tell you the CORRECT story on the “dog meets skunk”.

Sascha started barking at 4:15am, I tried to see if she could wait till my alarm went off at 4:35.. Uh, nope, she wanted out NOW.  So, I got up, still ½ asleep when I let Sascha out to potty. She went out in the grass, did her ‘thing’, and then must have gotten a whiff of Peppy (my name for the baby skunk). She took off towards the rose garden. I did not see anything when I shined the flash light over that way, but I might have been a second or two behind her on seeing Peppy.

So I tried calling her to come back inside, then I see her run to the middle of the grass rubbing her face in the grass. She finally came running to me to go inside. As soon as we did, she ran & rubbed her face on the carpet —-EEEEKKKK — I smelled something, but it was more like old garlic, so I hurried her back outside & ran to turn the hose on – she ran back to the grass to rub her face. I called her over to me & ran the hose in her face/eyes (in case that’s where she got sprayed), then I towel dried her face off & took her straight inside to her crate. Usually we don’t give her towels or a bed to lie on in her crate because she is notorious for chewing them, but in this case, I gave her the old towel to rub her face on.

I went back to the bedroom & softly told L that “uhm, we have a problem. I think Sascha met up with Peppy. She was rubbing her face in the grass & on the carpet & it smells – BAD!”  So he gets up (still mostly asleep) I hand him a wet wash cloth to wipe her face/eyes more. He says he didn’t smell anything. I don’t know how he didn’t, it was BAD! (It was even worse than this scratch ‘n sniff book that I had as a child that had burning trash as one of the scratch ‘n sniff pages ).  So he crawled back to bed. I get ready for work. Once I go out to the kitchen to feed Delilah & let the dogs out –this time on leashes, the smell is WORSE! Luckily Coco (parrot) can’t smell. I was afraid the cats would roll in the section of the carpet that Sascha rubbed on.   The dogs just looked at me like “uh, yeah, no thanks I’m not going out.”  Put everyone up & I left for the day. (5:30am)

(insert your section of telling me what to get at the store)

So, by the time I got home (12hrs later)… yeah, just an FYI: initial skunk spray smells like a mix of old garlic & burning rubber….12hr skunk spray smells like… DEAD SKUNK…we ALL know THAT smell! So, our garage, house & dog now reeked of that smell! *GAG*  I changed really quick because I didn’t want my work clothes to smell like skunk, I let the dogs outside to potty, grabbed an old wash cloth & the Natures Miracle Skunk Odor Remover  & Sascha. Followed the directions. That stuff smells A LOT better than skunk…its citrusy. It says to let it stay on her for a while.  So, as she ‘dried’, I used it on the carpet and then when L got home, he used it on her cage.   By the end of the night, everything seemed to have dissipated.

This morning, I didn’t smell skunk. I will bathe Sascha when I get home to make her smell even prettier than the citrus smell. When I let her out this morning, she went potty right off the patio, she didn’t venture out further to see if Peppy was around… I think she learned her lesson, stay away from that black & white thing out in the yard.

~Leecy

I waddle over to Sascha’s cage, sniff her, and tell Leecy I don’t smell anything and crawl back into bed.

This afternoon I call Leecy who tells me the whole house smells like a Skunk.

I look online and see that some folks have used Nature’s Miracle Skunk Odor Remover so I tell Leecy to buy that.

When I got home, it definitely smelled like a Skunk.  Leecy had already bathed Sascha in that Nature’s Miracle stuff so hopefully the smell will start to fade.

I’ll post an update later this week and tell ya’ll if that stuff seemed to work or not.

I ask Leecy if she could go by Wabash Antique and Feed to pick up some wild bird food.  I gave her 60 bucks the night before and I said I would give her more money when I got home.

Somehow, Leecy spends $180.00 on bird food.  Okay, it’s for the birds, all is well.

I get home and give Leecy $110.00, two fifties and one ten.

Leecy apparently sets the money on the table and while I’m feeding Coco (African Grey Parrot) I hear a bunch of curse words and Leecy telling me I need to train the dog better.  I ask her what happened.  She shows me a fifty and points at Sascha (German Shepherd).  I ask her where the other fifty and ten are, and she says “your stupid dog just ate it!”

I start laughing.  I said it could have been worse, I could have given her all twenties, or dollar bills.  Leecy is not laughing.

Leecy then tells me I need to go make Sascha poop and get the money back.

I told Leecy I can’t just make Sascha go poop, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow and hope it comes out.

Leecy tells me I need to give Sascha something to make her regurgitate the money.  I said I can’t do that.  “Let’s just wait until tomorrow and see if we can find it.”

I notice Leecy still isn’t seeing the humor in this, so I said I’ll go outside and pick up the dog poop so it will be easier to find tomorrow.

Whereas Leecy may not be feeling too confident she will get the $60 bucks back, I remain hopeful.  Why?

Because Sascha has a fetish.  She likes to eat paper, especially paper towels.  I don’t know why.  Perhaps it’s the fiber content.

Also, that “fiber” content occasionally gets a little stuck and Sascha waddles over to me for help.  I, being the animal lover that I am, always help Sascha when she has these little problems and give the “fiber” a gentle pull, then all is well.  Sascha, for her part, always seems quite appreciative when I help her out.

So, I remain hopeful Leecy will get her $60 bucks back tomorrow, and I also will have my camera ready to photograph the ordeal:-).

In the meantime, if you know Leecy or see her, tell her everything will come out alright.

I’m sure she’ll appreciate the sentiment (after she strangles me for posting this:-)

For those who don’t know, or don’t want to hunt within the blog, Sascha is my German Shepherd that I have imported from the Czech Republic.  She’s 6 years old.  She loves to follow me everywhere.  She also tends to love being outside, no matter how hot it is.  I’ve never quite understood why a black coated Dog would want to be out the in sun, but Sascha loves it.  She’ll just grab one of her many toys (she’s never without a toy nearby), find her a little shaded place in the grass, and lay down.

You might notice how her left ear is a little floppy.  That’s because a couple of years ago she either was stung by a bee, or perhaps bitten by a spider and her ear became really inflamed.  The vet ended up have to cut part of her ear to let some of the fluid drain out.  It’s never seemed to bother Sascha one way or another.  Oh, and Deliah (our adopted kitten) likes Sascha’s floppy ear the best.  Apparently it makes for a better toy than Sascha’s other ear:-)

Sascha Laying In Grass

Sascha seems to be the most bonded with Delilah as she follows her everywhere and licks her at every opportunity.

On the other hand, Maggie, being true to her character, doesn’t seem to care one way or another about another animal.  It’s people she’s most interested in.

That is, until Delilah decides to go in between the dog’s crates!  That’s when Maggie starts whining, probably asking why she has to be in a crate when the kitten doesn’t:-).

Kitten Bonding With Dogs

She and Chloe get along great, as well as her and the dogs.  In fact, her favorite playmate (other than Chloe) seems to be Sascha, my German Shepherd.

We also got her a new toy today.  I think she likes it.  She carries it around the house.

Delilah Jumping After Toy

Delilah Jumping But Misses Toy

Sascha Comes Flying Back To The Pool Stairs

Sascha has no concept of half speed or just slowly moving through the water.  She has to attack the water, she rush back as fast as she can so she can go back in.

Sascha Prepares To Pouce On The Water

You can see from the picture above, there is no graceful jump for Sascha.  She has to jump in the pool like she’s going to destroy anything in her way.

Over the last two weeks, I’ve probably bought 100 bags of mulch, 50 bags of topsoil, and 50 bags of potting soil.  Needless to say, my back is getting a workout and I’m not getting any younger.  Today, I purchased another 10 bags of mulch, 10 bags of potting soil, and 4 bags of humus peat.  I dreaded unloading this from my truck, wheeling it to the backyard, then spreading it around the yard.  I tried to call my neighbor and see if his 12 year old son was interested in earning some extra money.  Nope, his son was busy.  So I wondered what I could do to make it easier to unload all this stuff and transfer it to the backyard.

Suddenly a light bulb went off in my head.  Sascha (my German Shepherd) is a working dog (both of her parents were working dogs in the Czech Republic) and she loves to have some type of task to do, so what if I put on her harness (previously used for protection training) and had her pull the mulch and soil into the backyard for me?  Sure, each bag of this stuff is 40lbs, and Sascha weighs around 80lbs, but it’s worth a try isn’t it?  I normally load 4 bags in the wheelbarrow so surely Sascha could pull a couple of those right?

I’ll now let the videos mostly speak for themselves.

In this first video I just put two bags of mulch in the cart since I wasn’t sure Sascha would even know what to do much less pull her entire body weight.

Okay, so on the first try Sascha got a little excited and ran over some rocks which knocked the cart over.  Did you notice her tail wagging?  I think she was starting to enjoy this.  Of course, so was Leecy who was laughing in the video.

On this second video clip, Sascha seems to be getting the hang of it.  She seemed to be real excited doing this work (as you can see when she jumps on me).  However, I made a slight mistake.  I should know that when Sascha is in “working mode” that is NOT the time to lose focus, or let her lose focus, which is exactly what I did and what she did.  If you watch the end of this video, as soon as Sascha jumps up on me, she (for whatever reason) took a little nip at my arm.  That’s the first time Sascha has ever bitten me and I view this instance as my fault.  She just got a little too excited and I didn’t keep her focused.

In this last video clip, you can see that Sascha is in the groove.  Her tail is wagging, her ears are down and she is very focused.  I don’t even have to really say much to her.  That’s Leecy at the end of the video clip saying “she must know where the divots are” as Sascha avoids the drainage line in the grass and instead goes around it.

During the last trip, Sascha was actually pulling 3 bags of mulch which is 120lbs.

So what do y’all think?  Pretty cool huh?

Even though Maggie is 8 years old, when it comes to water she thinks she’s still a puppy.  One of her favorite things to do is to take a giant running leap when a toy is thrown in the pool (Remember, you can click on the picture for an enlarged view).

Maggie Diving In Pool

On the other hand, Sascha goes into the pool because Maggie does.  She does to chase toys in the pool, but she doesn’t take a giant running leap like Maggie does.

Sascha Retrieving Toy In Pool

Notice how calm Maggie looks, not a care in the world.

Maggie Swimming

Compare Maggie’s calmness with Sascha’s chaotic swimming.

Sascha Swimming

I’m going to try the early morning Saturday ritual and get some pictures. It’s supposed to be really hot and humid tomorrow so I’m sure I’ll be sweating like a pig.  It’s so humid here, especially in the morning, that I have to take my camera outside 30 minutes before I shoot just to let the lenses defog.

There is one image I’m hoping to capture.  We have a Woodpecker, but it has a completely white head.  I’m not sure if that means it’s a young Woodpecker or some albino type thing.  I saw it for the first time this afternoon.

Tonight Leecy and I saw Michael J. Frog for the first time in weeks.  I guess the one and a half inches of rain brought him out from wherever he’s been hiding.  As usual, he was in the pool.

Something I almost forgot. We had a little scare earlier in the week.  Back on Sunday I guess it was, I asked Leecy to trim Maggie’s back legs just a bit.  That was a mistake.  Leecy trimmed one side almost to the skin, but left the other side noticeably longer.  Not wanting Maggie to look like a complete freak, I brought out the clippers to give her an even trim.  It was then that Leecy and I noticed that Maggie had this 2 inch lump just below her rib cage.  That scared me, so the next morning I called the vet to bring both Maggie and Sascha in for their yearly checkup.

Well, leave it to Leecy to freak me out some more.  The next night when we were placing Coco’s cover on her cage, Leecy says to Coco, “Say A Prayer for Maggie, Coco.”  I look at her (Leecy) and asked why she said that.  I knew what Leecy was thinking (cancer), but I was purposely trying not to think too negative.  However, after that comment to Coco, I decided to call the vet the next morning and see if we could bring Maggie in later that afternoon.

We did end up taking Maggie to the vet the next day for a thorough exam.  The vet said that the lump was just a “fatty deposit” and nothing to worry about.  He said her teeth were immaculate.  However, she did have a yeast infection in her ears (not too uncommon for a floppy eared dog).  And, last but not least, Maggie weighed almost 60 pounds.  I almost fell over when I heard that as Maggie has never weighed that much in her life.  A gave a quick scowl to Leecy for making me, Maggie, Sascha, and Chloe all fat.  We also did a comprehensive blood work exam since Maggie is now 8 years old and considered “senior.”  One last thing.  Maggie apparently does not like going to the vet anymore.  She acted freaked out the whole time, which is highly unusual for her anywhere else.  You would have thought she’d been traumatized at the vet based on how she acted.  I guess as she gets older, the vet seems more scary.

Now fast forward to Friday for Sascha’s appointment.  Sascha, the dog with limitless energy, was the perfect calm patient.  Confidently walked into the vet, greeted everyone appropriately, sat down perfectly when necessary, and let the vet poke and prod her for the exam.  She didn’t even flinch when they checked her ears (she doesn’t even like her ears getting wet, much less someone sticking their fingers inside them).  Sascha now weighs 75 pounds and other than that, had perfect health.  Teeth, like Maggie’s, were immaculate.

At the end of the visit today they reviewed Maggie’s blood tests with me.  Everything was normal and looking good.  No cause for concern.

1. Border collies
2. Poodles
3. German shepherds
4. Golden retrievers
5. Dobermans
6. Shetland sheepdogs
7. Labrador retrievers

Here’s the link to the article

How’s this for a dog’s life?

Food

Fresh ground turkey (from the grocery store)

Fresh vegetables from the garden (green beans, carrots, zucchini)

Beef organs

Wild salmon oil

Vitamin E

Vitamin C

Chicken Backs (every other day)

Beef marrow bones (every Saturday)

Activities

These dogs also never have anything to do besides swim in the pool, chew on about 10 squeak toys, run around in a large backyard, have their own blankets on the couch for resting, and occasionally chasing the one cat around the house.

Sascha And Maggie

Some older pictures just for fun

Need A Drink?

Maggie’s thrilled at meeting her new sister! (you have to click on the picture to see Sascha)

Maggie Looking Thrilled