NaturallyResilient

About

I heard that a friend’s dog got sprayed by a skunk this week. That brought up memories of LC.

When we lived in the mobile home we adopted a cat from the shelter. We named her LC which stands for ‘Loud Lat’ as she was part Siamese and vocalized a lot. My husband said that LC could also stand for ‘lazy cat’, ‘little cat’ ‘lousy cat’ or ‘lap cat’ depending on the situation.

This mobile home had skirting around the bottom with a gap in it. One spring, LC would disappear for a while and we would hear bumping under the house. We would joke that LC was playing with baby skunks under the house. We were suspicious that a skunk family was living under the house as we would catch a whiff every once-in-a-while when we were outside.

Well sure enough one day LC came in from bumping under the house and stank horribly. Her fur on her chest was green! I shoved her outside and call the vet. He said to pour tomato juice on her and let her lick it off. I had to drive to the store to get a big can of tomato juice. When I got home I easily sniffed out LC, who was pretty upset about not being able to get away from the smell herself. To add insult to injury, I poured the tomato juice all over her and she took off. I didn’t see her for three days! When she showed up again, she still smelled but not as bad and the tomato juice was all gone.

I gave her the hand test. I petted her chest and could smell the skunk on my hand. If the smell would come off on my hand it would come off on the furniture. So, much to LC’s chagrin, I made her stay out for another 2 to 3 weeks until my hand would come away with no smell. Her fur still smelled for several more weeks but at least it did not rub off on anything else. LC never did go back to play with the skunk kits under the house.