In case you should ever have the same misfortune of needing to clean your dog, your home, and yourself of the putrid smell of skunk, here are a few tips. I offer only the ones I found useful, as many things we tried, (such as tomato paste and vinegar), did not have an immediate benefit.
1. Do not touch sprayed areas with bare hands– wear gloves! Last night I started Simon’s third bath of the day without gloves AGAIN. Serious brain fart. I quickly realized my mistake, but my hands already smelled of skunk AGAIN.
2. Do not wash everything in the washer together. We made the mistake of throwing all our bedding in with the most affected top sheet and now EVERYTHING smells equally bad. If some articles smell less, don’t wash them with the super stinky items. Currently hoping that putting everything in the hot Sacramento sun for the afternoon is going to help.
3. Baking soda sprinkled on the carpet, left over night, and then vacuumed makes a HUGE difference. Today our house is only slightly smelly, with practically no smell in the living room or on the couch where he rolled. Unfortunately our bedroom is ground zero, still trying to figure out what to do about that, (and sleeping in the guest bedroom in the meantime…).
4. Coconut oil on the affected areas after bathing is the biggest secret to our success. My mom thinks coconut oil is the answer to 9 out of 10 problems, (love you Mom!), and in this case she was correct. It seems to isolate the spray and trap the smell. Whereas I did not want the dog within three feet of me this morning, as soon as I put coconut oil over the area he was sprayed, (his entire head!), I could no longer smell him unless I put my nose up against his fur. HUGE IMPROVEMENT.
I’m sure all the other tricks help to some degree or another, but those were the four that in conjunction with frequent bathing worked the most for us. I was tempted to go to hot yoga and sweat out the oils, but then thought better of it. Pretty sure they’d ban me from ever returning. The good news, went to Saturday School (our version of back-to-school night) today and no one could smell me, (and, they all seemed to really enjoy my story). Coconut oil for the win.
Hope you never need to unearth this post in the future… Happy Saturday.
Our surprising discovery.
One of the nice things about coconut oil was that Simon was actually cooperative, (vinegar, not so much). Just like the tomato paste, he thought he was being covered in something delicious.
And, now he’s our minimally smelly, rebellious punk rock child. I think he’s over all these weird treatments.
oliviaobryon 
That is one of the cutest dogs I’ve ever seen! So glad you found some ways to mask the smell.
Hi O:
So glad that worked for you, Alex and Simon. He looks much happier now! I enjoyed your post, it was funny. I actually think what is going on with the oil is, it acts as a dispersant, it loosens the skunk oils and etc. and breaks them up, then if you take an old rag and wipe it off as much as possible it comes off on the rag. Well that’s my theory anyway. Susan Weed, the famous herbalist says that in order to absorb your minerals you must eat fat (oil) with your vegetables and grains, because the fat breaks up the minerals in your body so you can absorb them. Of course like you showed organic is the only way to go. No GMO or hydrogenated oils in or on my body. Go organic!
M
He is pretty cute, thanks! 😉
I’m told vanilla essence in a saucer can de-skunkify a house. but then,this is from someone who believes in vanilla essence much as you Mom believes in coconut oil.
I’ll give it a shot! I’m up for anything at this point 🙂
He is so cute, what a trooper! Love his spiky hairdo. Coconut oil actually doesn’t smell half bad either!
Agreed, he does look pretty cute with his special hair-do. Thank goodness for coconut oil! 🙂
We found that wearing gloves and using baking soda on the dog works great- rinse- more baking soda- rinse- then use a dish soap + baking soda. Then after a final last rinse- your mothers favorite- coconut oil.
Signed,
stinky in Buffalo
Good to know!! Hopeful to never need it again… 😉
My little macie met a skunk this morning did the bathing in prox., baking soda, dawn took some smell away still really bad just rubbed her down in coco oil sure hope it works, that skunk has sure caused major dissruption at our home!!! WOW
Hopefully it helped at least mask it a bit!! Not fun at all!