Cleaning Skunk Spray Off Your Animal or You for $3

It's one thing to drive by a smell of skunk wafting through the window, and a totally other thing to have it up front and personal. There is a moment of instant panic from the strength of the rubber tire smell that's 10Xs worse. Here is a simple, inexpensive solution to de-skunkifying your pet.

Step 1: Been "skunked?!?!"

My dog chased a seemingly dark cat one night, and after a yelp, she came running to me smelling STRONGLY of rubber tires and worse. She'd been skunked. Right in the face, too. UGH. Images of a red-soaked dog resembling a zombie horror movie flashed in my mind.

So, the first thing I did was quarantine her - and NOT inside the house. She was banished to the garage and outdoors, where nothing would pick up the odor, and she stayed until we got a solution. It's a good thing she's a small dog - a 9-pounder soaking wet!

Then it was a trip to the grocery store at 10 pm since the only thing I thought I could do was a tomato juice bath for Pepper (and, of course, I'd JUST gotten home). Picking up the tomato juice bottle - a whopping $7.99 for a quart - I called my daughter to have her find another solution online while I shopped. This is the simple and inexpensive solution she gave me! And it's scale-able for any size dog or animal.

Step 2: The Recipe and What to Do With It

1 bottle of hydrogen peroxide (~$2.99 for a quart vs $7.99 for a quart of tomato juice!)

1/4 cup of baking soda

1 tsp dish soap

Mix together, and pour all over dog.

If you're super nice about all this, you can heat up the hydrogen peroxide a bit before mixing, so it's not such a SHOCK to the dog! The smell is taken care of by the hydrogen peroxide and baking soda, and the soap helps distribute it via suds. The recipe amount above easily covered our small 9-pound dog. For a larger dog, scale up the recipe. I haven't tried it, but I suspect that the solution can be diluted with a bit of water if your dog is large and extra furry. The water will help distribute the baking soda and hydrogen peroxide.

Step 3: Now, Wash the Dog

After rinsing, be sure to give your dog a regular bath. We did and that's when we discovered we'd missed a spot on her nose, which still had an aroma of eau de Pepe Le Pew.

Redo as necessary in spots. We just mixed a quarter of the amount and it worked great!

Step 4: For Less Than $3

We were able to fully clean our dog from skunking!

Versus, $7.99 for a quart of tomato juice at the local Safeway (except for the online $65 juice shown above) - which would have looked like a blood bath, a HUGE mess for everyone, and would have cost more than twice the amount.

Happy, happy clean dog!