THAT FOOD IS FOR THE CAT!

The Tale of an Aromatic Intruder

By Pat Yeo, ValleyPetNew.com guest columnis

 

We met in my kitchen one evening.  I was watching television in the living room when I heard a noise from the other room.  It sounded like our cat, Henrygirl, eating her food, but it couldn’t be.  Henrygirl was at that very moment on my lap, snoozing comfortably.

 

I got up and went to the kitchen door.  “Oh my God, oh my God” was all I could say, over and over again.  There, standing in the middle of my kitchen was a skunk, having just finished my cat’s dinner.  We stood, as if frozen in time, for what seemed like an eternity before the skunk finally turned and ran out the cat door.  

My husband and I talked about this for the rest of the evening with great agitation.  What should we do?  We could close up the cat door (an obvious option), but then Henrygirl wouldn’t be able to get in and out. I don’t want to suggest that our cat is spoiled, but from the moment she first appeared on our back porch several years earlier to adopt us, she had made it quite clear that this arrangement would be in her terms.  We tried to make her an indoor cat, but she would have no part of it.  Soon we were installing cat doors, and the matter was settled.

We slowly came to the realization that this was probably not the first time that this skunk had been in our house.  We had gone on a brief camping trip the prior weekend and left out lots of cat food, way more than Henrygirl could possibly ever eat in two days.  When we returned the bowl was empty with dirty paw prints all around it.  We had been a bit puzzled at this, since Henrygirl is so clean.  The picture was becoming clearer.

This skunk had been coming in and out of our house for quite a while, eating our cat’s food.  We talked some more and then reached the brilliant conclusion that we were going to do nothing.  If this skunk had been coming in and out already and had never left its scent, what was there to worry about?  I can’t believe we were so naïve.  

We had a one night reprieve.  The second evening we went out to the movies.  When we returned, the smell in the house was overpowering.  We could barely breathe inside, particularly in the kitchen.  The odor was indescribable.  We opened every window in the house, sprayed virtually everything we had that might mask the odor, turned on the ceiling fans and went to bed.  

SUGGESTED REMEDIES

FOR THE PET

  • Wash with tomato juice.
  • Wash with tomato paste (sounds pretty messy to me, but then by the time you get to this point, making a mess is really a secondary sort of problem)
  • Wash with vinegar.
  • Wash with a rag soaked in Vanilla Extract (this sounds like much the nicest remedy to me!)
  • Wash with Scope mouthwash.

 

FOR THE HOUSE

  • Boil a pan of vinegar on the stove.
  • Place a bowl of dry coffee grounds in each room
  • The commercial remedy our guy used was N1-712, manufactured by Neutron Industries, Inc. (1/800/421-8481).

We also closed the cat door.  I believe this could be called closing the barn door after the horse has been stolen.  Henrygirl did not care for the fact that her door was closed and had us up and down all night, letting her in, letting her out.  It really didn’t matter much, because we certainly weren’t sleeping well.  The smell was overpowering.

We came to the conclusion that this particular skunk had become very fond of our home (and food) and probably was not going to go away on its own.  We were going to have to take action. 

We talked to everyone we knew – the vet, pet stores, people at work, strangers on the street – hoping to find someone who could give us good advice as to how to proceed.  Someone suggested tomato juice.  Great.  What are we supposed to do with it?  Wash the walls and carpets with it?  Lay inside the cat door and throw it on the skunk when it comes back?  Someone else said to use vinegar.  We filled a spray bottle with vinegar and went room to room, spraying everything in sight.  It seemed to help at first, but soon (very soon) the odor was back. 

Obviously, we still also had the problem of the skunk itself.  How were we going to get this skunk out of our lives?  We didn’t want it dead, but we did want it gone.  Our inquiries eventually led us to the Humane Society.  They said they had a solution.

We picked up a Skunk Trap from their offices.  This was a large, heavy box with a wire contraption at one end to hold the bait.  On this wire, we were to hook the bait – tuna or bacon wrapped in cheesecloth.  Theoretically the skunk would go into the box after the bait and the door would slam down, trapping it inside.  The jolly fellow at the Humane Society told us that we could then either call them to pick it up or just put the box in our car and bring it to them and they would take care of relocating the skunk.  PUT IT IN OUR CAR?!  Was he kidding?  He assured us that once the skunks are in the box, they hardly ever spray.    The words “hardly ever” concerned us.  We decided that we would have them come pick up the box.

Now we have the trap, we have the bait, but we also have another problem here.  There’s no doubt that if we set this trap, our Henrygirl will be the first one in it.  So, off to the vet she went.  She really did need a bath anyway, so this seemed like a good opportunity.

We spent another terrible night.  Was this skunk now standing outside our bedroom window spraying all night long, or was this residual from the original blast?  It was impossible to tell.  Certainly the hot weather wasn’t helping any either.  We were getting quite cranky with each other.  

The following morning there was nothing in the trap. The smell was worse.  We put fresh bait in again the following night, arranged for Henrygirl to sleep over another night at the vets and spent another night tossing and turning, trying to breathe through our mouths.  In the morning the trap remained empty.

By now, I was more than just a little testy at work, what with the loss of sleep and the relentless smell of skunk in my nostrils. Co-workers were starting to avoid me.  All I could talk about was that skunk.  Someone suggested trying a pest control person.  I was on the phone immediately.  The fellow agreed to come over.

He came that afternoon.  “Sure does smell bad in here” he offered as he walked through the house.  He went down into our basement with a flashlight and came immediately back up. “There’s a dead skunk down there.  Do you want me to get it out?”  (No, we like it. . .OF COURSE WE WANT YOU TO GET IT OUT!).  He said that health regulations prevented him from doing so.  Money exchanged hands.

He went out to his truck and returned some time later, wearing protective clothing, looking like something out of Ghostbusters.  Down into the basement he went.  When he returned with the skunk, he inquired if we wanted to take a look.  No thanks.

The spray he used  in the house afterwards was good, very good.  We absolutely could not smell skunk any more.  The house smelled much like an Orange Julius factory when he was done, but thankfully the skunk smell was gone and it did not return.

We were concerned about the cause of death of this skunk.  Had it been injured?  Had it eaten bad food?  We threw out the rest of the food and water in Henrygirl’s dish.  Obviously we’ll never know for sure, but we eventually came to the conclusion that this particular skunk had probably been sick when it first wandered into our house, looking for some food, water, and a comfortable place to die.  It gives us a bit of comfort to think that we provided that.

Our lives are back to normal.  Our house smells fresh and lovely. We now keep our cat door closed at night and keep Henrygirl in.  She doesn’t like it much and usually has us up at daybreak (much earlier than we care to arise) to let her out. Whenever we find ourselves being annoyed by this, we remember “our” skunk.  Getting up early to let the cat out is a very small price to pay.

(Written years ago.)