Well, this is a timely post. I let my little Yorkie out the other night. When I opened the door to let him back in, he sped by me, jumped on the bed and proceeded to rub his face on the comforter. I then caught the distinctive odor of Eau de Skunk. It was late, I wanted to go to bed, but found myself bathing a little dog, dousing him with V-8 juice (did not have tomato juice), and throwing the comforter outside until morning when I could deal with it. the juice helped a lot, but then he smelled like celery from the V-8. I didn’t know whether to pet him or put him in my Bloody Mary.
Not a fun experience. I hope it cured him of chasing after a skunk.
My dog rescued a baby skunk that fell into a small pond here. She didn’t know it was a skunk, and it was dark, so we didn’t either. Hilarity ensued when she came in and snorfled the carpet, trying to rid the smell from her nose for about an hour. That dog was the best.
Dawn soap, peroxide, and tomato juice or sauce (in equal parts). Mix all together, rub on dog in large sink. Rub it in good then rinse your dog. The skunk smell will go away. We have skunks around here but no dog. When we did have a dog she got sprayed. She hated the bath and never got near another skunk.
Tomato juice doesn’t work. Someone told me to buy Summer’s Eve douche.
It worked pretty well.
But eyebrows were raised at the checkout counter when I showed up with 10 bottles of douche.
Skunks also do not like to be barked at, or chased!
Lot’s of skunks in the high desert of Arizona, lot’s of sprayed dogs. The smell is so bad sometimes it’s blinding, especially when it happens outside your bedroom window.
@phenry Same experience, but I was advised to buy massengil douche powder, make it into a paste and plaster my poor Sophie with it. I bought a bunch of it. It was 11 p.m and I had just returned from an evening class. The clerk at Walgreens gave me a real church lady pursed lip look. It did work better than tomato (it was her second encounter) but today you should just keep some of that “Natures Miracle” liquid from the pet supply store around. I’m told it’s the best.
@ Perspective
Wow, that Pepe Le Pew cartoon reminded me of an Italian immigrant that both my sister and I had to nearly put down to get him to realize we weren’t interested. Hadn’t thought of him in decades.
I think skunks are the only animal of which I’m really terrified, and it’s because of the afterburn. So sorry all your dogs had the skunk encounters.
@redgrandma
Hey. Some of us are late night purchasers of massive quantities of Summer’s Eve douche. Some are late night purchasers of massive quantities of Massengill douche. I can’t tell you how to live your life.
But I think we had the same clerk.
When I first moved from the city to the burg, 1970, my wife was on the deck one day when my 5 year old son called her and showed her two “little kitty’s” he found. He was holding them up for her to see. Mamma skunk was about three feet away watching. Mamma Moe said calmly “Sean honey put them down, there Mommy is looking for them.” He put them down. One of the few times he ever did what he was told. Anyway Momma skunk went off into the woods with her “kitties.” Sean was not sprayed. The neighbors, experts in skunkdom, said that the mother skunk sensed no fear when Sean was holding her kittens and didn’t feel she had to use her weapon of mass stinkdom. Anyone with a like experience?
Was sprayed 40+ years ago on a wilderness camping trip outside the Girl Scout camp. A bunch of us caught it. Our poor counselor had to walk miles down the road to a pay phone and put an SOS out to the camp director. The director got in her van, drove to the only grocery store in the area, bought out their entire stock of tomato juice, and delivered it to us. We had to burn the clothes we’d been wearing. One poor girl had to finish the trip in her bathing suit.
Good times.
Believe it or not we have skunks in Yonkers. I’ve never been sprayed but some of my neighbors have been. I can always tell when they’ve been around.
Pet stores sell a product called Skunk Be Gone (or something close to that. I had a Black Lab that had a real talent for getting sprayed on the way back from the duck blind. I’ve had several duck dogs. That mutt was the only one ever sprayed and he was sprayed FOUR times.
My old black lab Payton was the most laid back dog in the world, BUT he hated skunks. No matter how many times I explained that he might win the battle but would lose the war (he hated the noxious baths also) he would kill a skunk if he saw one. jclady, I live in TN.
@redgrandma – well, duh. I have a big jug of Nature’s Miracle and it did not occur to me to use it on him.
@Moe Tom – a friend of mine had a skunk family living under her house. One day she walked out on her porch and was confronted by a momma skunk herding her babies back under the house. Momma stared at my friend. Friend stood stock still. Then momma skunk stomped her front feet a few times. Friend still did not move. Momma skunk decided there was no danger and continued on her way. Friend told me that the front foot stomp is a warning before spraying. Luckily she heeded the warning.
I have no bad experiences with skunks, and I’ve crossed many these past 5 years. I even had one with its raised tail 2 feet away from my face. (I was bending down to rub my ankle. It was night. I didn’t see it under my outdoor chair from which it scampered.) Talking in a calm voice (like you would with a pet) seems to calm them down enough for you to back away out of their ‘space’. The younger they are, the more brave/friendly they are. I noticed juvies and adults really don’t care if you’re within 10-20 feet of them as long as you’re not acting like a…uh, liberal/Democrat. Most juvie/adults will walk away from you if you slowly walk toward them (like an adult, not like a fucking blithering retard). Again, speaking to them in a calm manner makes a ton of difference. And I don’t mean in a cutesy-poo manner. Fuck, I’ll spray you myself with projectile diarrhea if you try to pull that shit on me.
Yes, the front-paws-stomping is a warning that you’re too close to it (usually it’s cornered with no escape route).
If you shoot them at the base of the skull they can’t spray. Well I should qualify that by saying it was a 12 gage with #6 shot at about 30 feet.
This is a great deal, about a third of what I paid for a 32oz bottle.
Angus thinks everyone and everything is his friend
In may this year Angus found out that this just was not so.
Vinegar.
It is the active ingredient in tomato and douche
Straight out of the jug.
Douse the dog, rub it in, shampoo
Make the dog reflect on his choices
I’m thinking the common ingredient is Hudrogen Peroxide. Not vinegar. Check the labels.
All three of my dogs were sprayed one night in my backyard. I caught some in my eyes. The dogs ran straight into the house, and started to roll on a carpet. I got them all into the shower before they’d done more, and spent the next three hours trying to kill the smell using every internet suggested concoction my wife brought me. We learned, way too late, about keeping tomatoe juice handy. The 120 pound Rott/Bernise had it in his fur at least another month.
Hudrogen Peroxide played third base for the Toledo Mudhens in 1956….His cousin Vinegar never made it to triple A…
Willy, Nitrous Oxide their nephew laughed all the time, and was faster than hell.
Oh my, can’t believe I forgot about this. It happened last year.
One of our sons built a gazebo with a huge low, low deck butting up to the gazebo deck. They wound up with a mama and some baby skunks under the gazebo. After the skunks (and an accidental racoon) were trapped and removed (took 3 weeks) and near 2 thousand dollars, they should be permanently skunk free with the new deep in ground barrier.
This is in an area that has been residential since the 70’s with no “wilds” within 5 miles of it.
@ Unruly
Will it work on clothing if one accidentally bumps into moo or helliary?
PJ, no, you would have to burn everything and bathe in bleach for three or four weeks.
I just let my dogs out to pee and there is skunk vapor in the air. Something got sprayed out there.
Bad think about it, the temp finally just got down into the upper 60s and I can’t leave the door and windows open without catching a huge whiff…
We’ve got a mama and 4 babies living near the edge of the woods. They are quite amiable as long as you move slowly and don’t pester them. They are eating their weight in Japanese beetle grubs and love stale apple muffins. Just sent a few cuteness overload pictures to BFH.
Corona
So, skunk-whispering works eh?
Unruly, yea my product description and title were way off, but that’s the stuff. I still have half a bottle in the garage.
Brad, I used to use tomato juice, but the results were lousy, and it’s very time consuming. I know that you can spray just about anything with vinegar and leave it out in the sun to evaporate and it will take most of the stink with it. Never tried the vinegar method with a dog, but it worked pretty well for a Russian military wool blanket that smelled like moth balls.
Now I’m wondering if a Bentonite clay bath might work for a sprayed dog. Bentonite Clay absorbs many times its weight in toxins. Maybe even better than charcoal.
*I use the word “Bentonite” in two different sentences, three now, and only one of them gets red tagged as misspelled ?
Bob moved to Minot ND mid summer of 86. Much to his chagrin he found that a family of skunks resided under his porch.
Wondering how to evict them he went to the county extension agent and asked for some advice.
The agent told him of one sure remedy,. Take 10 lbs do Lutfisk and throw it under the deck.
Bob complied and was initially pleased with the results, but a week later ended up back at the county agent and explained his new problem.
“The Lutefisk sure took care of the skunks but what do you got to get rid of the Norwegians.”
Long ago I was riding my dirtbike through the weeds at a old gravel pit, and damn near ran over one. I got sprayed a little, but the motorcycle stunk for a week. Then out in the wilderness one night, I woke to the sound of something rustling around in in my backpack. I turned on the flash light only to find three little spotted skunks rooting around in the pockets. That startled me at first,and I slid my sleeping bag down to the bottom of the ground tarp I was sleeping on. They just trundled off into the brush. Apparently spotted skunks aren’t near as “trigger happy” as striped skunks.
I have never had a pet that could write; no one seems amazed at this.
It was a dark and stormy night….well, maybe not stormy as much as stinky…It started with our flying fur ball named Roscoe came running in from the back yard…at warp five..which was odd enough but then he ran under the bed and started rolling and thrashing and growling and snorting…which was even stranger. Then the smell caught up with blur. Apparently his encounter was at Point Blank Range. I dove under the bed and grabbed the dog and he and I headed for the showers. He was actually foaming at the mouth and we spent the next hour trying every combination of detergent, shampoo and tomato product we happened to have in the house up to and including V8. We found out a week later that apparently he had been caught mid-bark when Mr skunk decided to cut loose and had gotten most of it right down the throat. We had finally gotten an appointment to bring the dog into the vet for a check-up and shots. Just a side note – Roscoe HATES the vet, and the closer he got the more agitated he became. Apparently he still had quite a bit if the skunk sauce still inside, because by the time we arrived at the vet, we smelled just like it was that dark and stinky night all over again. The vet (and everyone in the waiting room) invited us to come back next week when we could better control our fragrance. For the next month every time that dog became agitated that smell would come out of his pores and he got another tomato bath.
MSG Grumpy and stinky
“Friend told me that the front foot stomp is a warning before spraying”
Skunks stomping their feet is definitely an “I’m angry” sign from skunks. They may spray, not a guarantee. If you can back out – do it. Like you should have before it got that far.
The stomp precedes two other signs, if the stomp didn’t get you to back off, then the body assumes the spray position – the rear gets aimed, the face looks back. And the final clue you’re about to get sprayed is the tail going upright. If you’ve misread all three – you deserve to get sprayed.
Little known fact about spraying – if the tail can not achieve the 90 degree angle to the body, the skunk can’t spray. If you can catch it by the tail and hold it in the air, it can’t spray you. Seen it a lot more than once. Good luck trying that! lol
I have a lot of video from trapping them. Putting a trail camera on the traps lets me know what is going on and helps me refine what I need to do. Sometimes the animals have learned something I need to account for – like I have evidence one raccoon was educated by another how to flip the cages to get the cat food out of one they tripped shut from messing with it. They couldn’t get it out because I had put sheet metal on the bottoms to keep them from digging under the traps and getting the cat food that falls through – which I had learned they were doing earlier in the week.
On one 4-trap job, a male skunk was caught in one and there was a lot of video of him trying to get out. Another male came along and it was obvious they didn’t like each other. A lot of foot stamping from the one caught. He kept things face to face as the other searched for kibble around the outside. Stomp stomp stomp all the time. You could see the tension in his posture. As soon as the other left. You could see him relax and forlornly look at his cage again.
The next night, that visiting competitor was frantically trying to get two females out of their traps. Going back and forth between them, tugging at a cover I had over one and digging under the other. None of this behavior was present the night before.
I am convinced the first guy was a competitor for the harem.
From 30 years of trapping them, I am convinced they spray each other more than other animals – if the population is high enough.
I took @ 130 skunks from that one property over two Winters. They used the crawl space as shelter and would spray each other making the place constantly stinky. After things were straightened out it was pretty clear they had a circuit route around the several hundred acres that they traveled and none lived there permanently.
Tips on successful trapping and not getting sprayed:
Use dry cat food. It lasts longer than anything in a can, And no, sardines are not superior bait, You’re trying too hard.
Put the trap in a trash can on it’s side. They won’t accidentally trip the trap by clawing for the food directly on the wrong end, they are protected from any bad weather – you may not care, but I can be fined $1,500.00 per animal left out in rain, snow, etc, and the biggest personal bonus being you can pick up the whole thing and not get sprayed. You kind of have a skunk cannon at that point.
“If you shoot them at the base of the skull they can’t spray. Well I should qualify that by saying it was a 12 gage with #6 shot at about 30 feet. ”
Animal control would come out and pop them with the .22 revolver on their hip.
The first, and only, time I saw them do that, he must have missed his mark. It sprayed everything within several feet before dying. My truck, the office wall, the ground – HIM.
I didn’t call them again for skunks for almost 20 years or so when I was trapping that 130 or so at one property. Animal control wasn’t happy about going through all their injection chemical so they said I could drown them and make their job easier.
I had been doing it already but it was nice to get the permission and it puts my traps back to work immediately instead of a day or so delay. It is the county policy to kill all trapped skunks as they have the highest infection rate of rabies of all the animals.
Irony: I can be fined $1,500 if a skunk dies in my trap before I get back to check them. But they kill every one of them and then instruct me to drown them to save them time, money and bother.
One of the rules of trapping here: 24 hr limit on checking live traps, so if you leave it a long time untended, thinking it’s ok to check back in a week or longer, you’re going to get fined. Makes sense to me. I have to let a lot of other non-target animals go all the time. While it may be easy to dismiss a dead skunk, I’d hate to see Fluffy dead in the trap when I get there.
@ Dad of 4
Thank you for all the skunk info. I enjoyed reading it.
Bwahahaha!!!
I’ve never had the experience, but have many family members in Tennessee that speak of this regularly.
You mean kitty had a fake stripe down her back?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lsQfTaStcs
Pepe Le Pew is Odor-able
yes
Who likes their butt sniffed?
Well, this is a timely post. I let my little Yorkie out the other night. When I opened the door to let him back in, he sped by me, jumped on the bed and proceeded to rub his face on the comforter. I then caught the distinctive odor of Eau de Skunk. It was late, I wanted to go to bed, but found myself bathing a little dog, dousing him with V-8 juice (did not have tomato juice), and throwing the comforter outside until morning when I could deal with it. the juice helped a lot, but then he smelled like celery from the V-8. I didn’t know whether to pet him or put him in my Bloody Mary.
Not a fun experience. I hope it cured him of chasing after a skunk.
My dog rescued a baby skunk that fell into a small pond here. She didn’t know it was a skunk, and it was dark, so we didn’t either. Hilarity ensued when she came in and snorfled the carpet, trying to rid the smell from her nose for about an hour. That dog was the best.
Dawn soap, peroxide, and tomato juice or sauce (in equal parts). Mix all together, rub on dog in large sink. Rub it in good then rinse your dog. The skunk smell will go away. We have skunks around here but no dog. When we did have a dog she got sprayed. She hated the bath and never got near another skunk.
Tomato juice doesn’t work. Someone told me to buy Summer’s Eve douche.
It worked pretty well.
But eyebrows were raised at the checkout counter when I showed up with 10 bottles of douche.
Skunks also do not like to be barked at, or chased!
Lot’s of skunks in the high desert of Arizona, lot’s of sprayed dogs. The smell is so bad sometimes it’s blinding, especially when it happens outside your bedroom window.
@phenry Same experience, but I was advised to buy massengil douche powder, make it into a paste and plaster my poor Sophie with it. I bought a bunch of it. It was 11 p.m and I had just returned from an evening class. The clerk at Walgreens gave me a real church lady pursed lip look. It did work better than tomato (it was her second encounter) but today you should just keep some of that “Natures Miracle” liquid from the pet supply store around. I’m told it’s the best.
@ Perspective
Wow, that Pepe Le Pew cartoon reminded me of an Italian immigrant that both my sister and I had to nearly put down to get him to realize we weren’t interested. Hadn’t thought of him in decades.
I think skunks are the only animal of which I’m really terrified, and it’s because of the afterburn. So sorry all your dogs had the skunk encounters.
@redgrandma
Hey. Some of us are late night purchasers of massive quantities of Summer’s Eve douche. Some are late night purchasers of massive quantities of Massengill douche. I can’t tell you how to live your life.
But I think we had the same clerk.
When I first moved from the city to the burg, 1970, my wife was on the deck one day when my 5 year old son called her and showed her two “little kitty’s” he found. He was holding them up for her to see. Mamma skunk was about three feet away watching. Mamma Moe said calmly “Sean honey put them down, there Mommy is looking for them.” He put them down. One of the few times he ever did what he was told. Anyway Momma skunk went off into the woods with her “kitties.” Sean was not sprayed. The neighbors, experts in skunkdom, said that the mother skunk sensed no fear when Sean was holding her kittens and didn’t feel she had to use her weapon of mass stinkdom. Anyone with a like experience?
Was sprayed 40+ years ago on a wilderness camping trip outside the Girl Scout camp. A bunch of us caught it. Our poor counselor had to walk miles down the road to a pay phone and put an SOS out to the camp director. The director got in her van, drove to the only grocery store in the area, bought out their entire stock of tomato juice, and delivered it to us. We had to burn the clothes we’d been wearing. One poor girl had to finish the trip in her bathing suit.
Good times.
Believe it or not we have skunks in Yonkers. I’ve never been sprayed but some of my neighbors have been. I can always tell when they’ve been around.
Pet stores sell a product called Skunk Be Gone (or something close to that. I had a Black Lab that had a real talent for getting sprayed on the way back from the duck blind. I’ve had several duck dogs. That mutt was the only one ever sprayed and he was sprayed FOUR times.
My old black lab Payton was the most laid back dog in the world, BUT he hated skunks. No matter how many times I explained that he might win the battle but would lose the war (he hated the noxious baths also) he would kill a skunk if he saw one. jclady, I live in TN.
@redgrandma – well, duh. I have a big jug of Nature’s Miracle and it did not occur to me to use it on him.
@Moe Tom – a friend of mine had a skunk family living under her house. One day she walked out on her porch and was confronted by a momma skunk herding her babies back under the house. Momma stared at my friend. Friend stood stock still. Then momma skunk stomped her front feet a few times. Friend still did not move. Momma skunk decided there was no danger and continued on her way. Friend told me that the front foot stomp is a warning before spraying. Luckily she heeded the warning.
I have no bad experiences with skunks, and I’ve crossed many these past 5 years. I even had one with its raised tail 2 feet away from my face. (I was bending down to rub my ankle. It was night. I didn’t see it under my outdoor chair from which it scampered.) Talking in a calm voice (like you would with a pet) seems to calm them down enough for you to back away out of their ‘space’. The younger they are, the more brave/friendly they are. I noticed juvies and adults really don’t care if you’re within 10-20 feet of them as long as you’re not acting like a…uh, liberal/Democrat. Most juvie/adults will walk away from you if you slowly walk toward them (like an adult, not like a fucking blithering retard). Again, speaking to them in a calm manner makes a ton of difference. And I don’t mean in a cutesy-poo manner. Fuck, I’ll spray you myself with projectile diarrhea if you try to pull that shit on me.
Yes, the front-paws-stomping is a warning that you’re too close to it (usually it’s cornered with no escape route).
If you shoot them at the base of the skull they can’t spray. Well I should qualify that by saying it was a 12 gage with #6 shot at about 30 feet.
This stuff works, if you follow the directions:
https://www.amazon.com/Natures-Miracle-Skunk-Odor-Remover/dp/B000NJJKCM
This is a great deal, about a third of what I paid for a 32oz bottle.
Angus thinks everyone and everything is his friend
In may this year Angus found out that this just was not so.
Vinegar.
It is the active ingredient in tomato and douche
Straight out of the jug.
Douse the dog, rub it in, shampoo
Make the dog reflect on his choices
I’m thinking the common ingredient is Hudrogen Peroxide. Not vinegar. Check the labels.
All three of my dogs were sprayed one night in my backyard. I caught some in my eyes. The dogs ran straight into the house, and started to roll on a carpet. I got them all into the shower before they’d done more, and spent the next three hours trying to kill the smell using every internet suggested concoction my wife brought me. We learned, way too late, about keeping tomatoe juice handy. The 120 pound Rott/Bernise had it in his fur at least another month.
Hudrogen Peroxide played third base for the Toledo Mudhens in 1956….His cousin Vinegar never made it to triple A…
Willy, Nitrous Oxide their nephew laughed all the time, and was faster than hell.
Oh my, can’t believe I forgot about this. It happened last year.
One of our sons built a gazebo with a huge low, low deck butting up to the gazebo deck. They wound up with a mama and some baby skunks under the gazebo. After the skunks (and an accidental racoon) were trapped and removed (took 3 weeks) and near 2 thousand dollars, they should be permanently skunk free with the new deep in ground barrier.
This is in an area that has been residential since the 70’s with no “wilds” within 5 miles of it.
@ Unruly
Will it work on clothing if one accidentally bumps into moo or helliary?
PJ, no, you would have to burn everything and bathe in bleach for three or four weeks.
I just let my dogs out to pee and there is skunk vapor in the air. Something got sprayed out there.
Bad think about it, the temp finally just got down into the upper 60s and I can’t leave the door and windows open without catching a huge whiff…
We’ve got a mama and 4 babies living near the edge of the woods. They are quite amiable as long as you move slowly and don’t pester them. They are eating their weight in Japanese beetle grubs and love stale apple muffins. Just sent a few cuteness overload pictures to BFH.
Corona
So, skunk-whispering works eh?
Unruly, yea my product description and title were way off, but that’s the stuff. I still have half a bottle in the garage.
Brad, I used to use tomato juice, but the results were lousy, and it’s very time consuming. I know that you can spray just about anything with vinegar and leave it out in the sun to evaporate and it will take most of the stink with it. Never tried the vinegar method with a dog, but it worked pretty well for a Russian military wool blanket that smelled like moth balls.
Now I’m wondering if a Bentonite clay bath might work for a sprayed dog. Bentonite Clay absorbs many times its weight in toxins. Maybe even better than charcoal.
*I use the word “Bentonite” in two different sentences, three now, and only one of them gets red tagged as misspelled ?
Bob moved to Minot ND mid summer of 86. Much to his chagrin he found that a family of skunks resided under his porch.
Wondering how to evict them he went to the county extension agent and asked for some advice.
The agent told him of one sure remedy,. Take 10 lbs do Lutfisk and throw it under the deck.
Bob complied and was initially pleased with the results, but a week later ended up back at the county agent and explained his new problem.
“The Lutefisk sure took care of the skunks but what do you got to get rid of the Norwegians.”
Long ago I was riding my dirtbike through the weeds at a old gravel pit, and damn near ran over one. I got sprayed a little, but the motorcycle stunk for a week. Then out in the wilderness one night, I woke to the sound of something rustling around in in my backpack. I turned on the flash light only to find three little spotted skunks rooting around in the pockets. That startled me at first,and I slid my sleeping bag down to the bottom of the ground tarp I was sleeping on. They just trundled off into the brush. Apparently spotted skunks aren’t near as “trigger happy” as striped skunks.
I have never had a pet that could write; no one seems amazed at this.
It was a dark and stormy night….well, maybe not stormy as much as stinky…It started with our flying fur ball named Roscoe came running in from the back yard…at warp five..which was odd enough but then he ran under the bed and started rolling and thrashing and growling and snorting…which was even stranger. Then the smell caught up with blur. Apparently his encounter was at Point Blank Range. I dove under the bed and grabbed the dog and he and I headed for the showers. He was actually foaming at the mouth and we spent the next hour trying every combination of detergent, shampoo and tomato product we happened to have in the house up to and including V8. We found out a week later that apparently he had been caught mid-bark when Mr skunk decided to cut loose and had gotten most of it right down the throat. We had finally gotten an appointment to bring the dog into the vet for a check-up and shots. Just a side note – Roscoe HATES the vet, and the closer he got the more agitated he became. Apparently he still had quite a bit if the skunk sauce still inside, because by the time we arrived at the vet, we smelled just like it was that dark and stinky night all over again. The vet (and everyone in the waiting room) invited us to come back next week when we could better control our fragrance. For the next month every time that dog became agitated that smell would come out of his pores and he got another tomato bath.
MSG Grumpy and stinky
“Friend told me that the front foot stomp is a warning before spraying”
Skunks stomping their feet is definitely an “I’m angry” sign from skunks. They may spray, not a guarantee. If you can back out – do it. Like you should have before it got that far.
The stomp precedes two other signs, if the stomp didn’t get you to back off, then the body assumes the spray position – the rear gets aimed, the face looks back. And the final clue you’re about to get sprayed is the tail going upright. If you’ve misread all three – you deserve to get sprayed.
Little known fact about spraying – if the tail can not achieve the 90 degree angle to the body, the skunk can’t spray. If you can catch it by the tail and hold it in the air, it can’t spray you. Seen it a lot more than once. Good luck trying that! lol
I have a lot of video from trapping them. Putting a trail camera on the traps lets me know what is going on and helps me refine what I need to do. Sometimes the animals have learned something I need to account for – like I have evidence one raccoon was educated by another how to flip the cages to get the cat food out of one they tripped shut from messing with it. They couldn’t get it out because I had put sheet metal on the bottoms to keep them from digging under the traps and getting the cat food that falls through – which I had learned they were doing earlier in the week.
On one 4-trap job, a male skunk was caught in one and there was a lot of video of him trying to get out. Another male came along and it was obvious they didn’t like each other. A lot of foot stamping from the one caught. He kept things face to face as the other searched for kibble around the outside. Stomp stomp stomp all the time. You could see the tension in his posture. As soon as the other left. You could see him relax and forlornly look at his cage again.
The next night, that visiting competitor was frantically trying to get two females out of their traps. Going back and forth between them, tugging at a cover I had over one and digging under the other. None of this behavior was present the night before.
I am convinced the first guy was a competitor for the harem.
From 30 years of trapping them, I am convinced they spray each other more than other animals – if the population is high enough.
I took @ 130 skunks from that one property over two Winters. They used the crawl space as shelter and would spray each other making the place constantly stinky. After things were straightened out it was pretty clear they had a circuit route around the several hundred acres that they traveled and none lived there permanently.
Tips on successful trapping and not getting sprayed:
Use dry cat food. It lasts longer than anything in a can, And no, sardines are not superior bait, You’re trying too hard.
Put the trap in a trash can on it’s side. They won’t accidentally trip the trap by clawing for the food directly on the wrong end, they are protected from any bad weather – you may not care, but I can be fined $1,500.00 per animal left out in rain, snow, etc, and the biggest personal bonus being you can pick up the whole thing and not get sprayed. You kind of have a skunk cannon at that point.
“If you shoot them at the base of the skull they can’t spray. Well I should qualify that by saying it was a 12 gage with #6 shot at about 30 feet. ”
Animal control would come out and pop them with the .22 revolver on their hip.
The first, and only, time I saw them do that, he must have missed his mark. It sprayed everything within several feet before dying. My truck, the office wall, the ground – HIM.
I didn’t call them again for skunks for almost 20 years or so when I was trapping that 130 or so at one property. Animal control wasn’t happy about going through all their injection chemical so they said I could drown them and make their job easier.
I had been doing it already but it was nice to get the permission and it puts my traps back to work immediately instead of a day or so delay. It is the county policy to kill all trapped skunks as they have the highest infection rate of rabies of all the animals.
Irony: I can be fined $1,500 if a skunk dies in my trap before I get back to check them. But they kill every one of them and then instruct me to drown them to save them time, money and bother.
One of the rules of trapping here: 24 hr limit on checking live traps, so if you leave it a long time untended, thinking it’s ok to check back in a week or longer, you’re going to get fined. Makes sense to me. I have to let a lot of other non-target animals go all the time. While it may be easy to dismiss a dead skunk, I’d hate to see Fluffy dead in the trap when I get there.
@ Dad of 4
Thank you for all the skunk info. I enjoyed reading it.