We just came back from a great summer camping trip with our dog. The location was beautiful, the weather perfect and the time with friends and family was awesome. Did we have a little excitement? Absolutely. On the first night, we were sitting around the campfire talking with friends when our Rhodesian Ridgeback Jessie, decided to chase a forest inhabitant. Unfortunately for Jessie, and all of us around her, Jessie’s subject was a skunk. Before we could even get out of our camping chairs Jessie got sprayed in the eyes and mouth. She came running back foaming, sneezing and rubbing her eyes.
Poor thing. The taste must have been horrible, the smell sure was atrocious. I immediately proceeded to remove the excess and washed her with some shampoo. Of course that did nothing… To the rescue came my friend with her can of tomato juice. Apparently that is the best home remedy for skunk odor.
I doused Jessie with tomato juice and cleaned her eyes with saline solution and we waited patiently for the juice to dry. That did take a little while since Jessie’s fur is so thick but to my amazement when it did dry, most of the stench was gone. In the morning she was as good as new.
That next evening by the campfire Jessie stayed by us. I am not sure what kind of lesson she learned, but I sure did learn one. When camping in the woods, pack tomato juice!
Because of this extra camping excitement I decided to do a little research and came up with a good camping list of essentials to take when camping with dogs. You can download the iPetScene Camping Checklist FREE here.
