It all started when we were relaxing on a warm Sunday evening with a glass of wine. Suddenly dog 1 barked - but not a normal bark. Those of you with dogs would understand; barking can vary drastically. Soon our other two joined in, equally frantic.. We jumped up, ran outside just in time to smell skunk. We were too stupid to prevent the dogs from running back into the house through the dog door and of course they rubbed all over everything. Several peroxide/baking soda/dish soap baths later, we were relaxed enough to research what to do and saw that Vector Control would, under some circumstances, actually give you a trap and would take it away when it was occupied.
"Right," I thought cynically. "They aren't prosecuting misdemeanors in CoCo due to lack of funds and they will pick up SKUNKS for you?"
We figured the skunk issue was a one time thing and decided to forget it. Big mistake. We were relaxing with a glass of wine the next day (maybe we should cut down on the wine) and suddenly one dog started barking frantically...you can guess the rest, except this time one dog had it cornered and got sprayed in the face. Sigh - rinse and repeat - literally.
So the next morning I called Vector control. Got a phone menu thing that hung up on me (I think), so I tried again. I said "make SURE someone calls before coming, because one (our poor rescue) is a problem dog".
No one called. Within an hour, a man was doing an inspection of the outside of our house. However, he did not come into our yard, so all was well. I wish I could remember the name of this guy. He is just wonderful. And I'm pretty sure he does not realize that we, at least, have a tremendous amount of respect for him and appreciation for what he does, although of course I did thank him. He is extremely intelligent and friendly. He did an assessment and told us he thought the skunk was living under our deck. Great.
We caught it, thanks to him. He told us where to set the trap (it is a humane trap, by the way) and what to put in it. It took a while, but we finally got it - and it was very pregnant with many little skunks. I have nothing against skunks, exactly, except for when they are spraying my dogs....So the nice man picked up the skunk for us - happy ending, right? Not so much. He told us to continue baiting the trap, because there would probably be another female around. After a month of not catching it, he took the trap back.
So last Sunday, we were sitting around at dusk, sipping a glass of wine (maybe we have a problem?) and suddenly.....yep! This time the dog had it pinned on the ground and was biting it! So - full in the face.
But despite the way this sounds, it's not about the skunks or the dogs or our wine issues...no, this is about the nameless guy who came out again to check the area, and who promised to check in with us - and kept his promise. Both my husband and I just think he is the greatest and deserves endless praise for his work, for his intelligence and for just being so damned nice.
So my apologies to him - but when I have his name, I wll do an updated post. read more