Pet Talk

by Cathy Davis
www.houltonanimalshelter.com
    If you own a dog, write down this recipe or cut out this column and tape it to your refrigerator door – 1 quart peroxide, 1/2 cup baking soda, 2 teaspoons dawn dishwashing detergent.  If your dog has a run-in with a skunk, mix this all up and bath him in it, maybe even mix a double batch.  It does work, as my family unfortunately had the opportunity to discover this past weekend.
    Dogs are funny creatures, they have remarkable memories.  You can teach them to sit, roll over, play dead, fall down and moan when you pretend to shoot them with your finger.  They know what time you get home from work, they know when supper time rolls around without having to wear a watch.  They know the sound of your car as opposed to a stranger’s car.  They know when you’ve been to visit someone six hours ago who had a dog, or a cat, and they know just exactly how many times you petted this stranger.
    Your dog can see in the dark, hear whistles well beyond human hearing, and sense a storm coming 100 miles away. 
    Dogs can be trained to sniff out drugs, and even cancer believe it or not.  There is one dog whose success rate in sniffing cancer in humans is something like 98%!
    Dogs can sense when you’re sad or discouraged and know that putting their head in your lap is just the medicine you need.
    Dogs can swim, play Frisbee, protect your children, guard your house, and be your best friend.  Dogs can help the visual and hearing disabled to be more independent and safe.  They know the difference between a ringing phone and a ringing doorbell.  Most know the difference between their toys on the floor and Tommy’s toys.
    Dogs are just incredibly intelligent until it comes to two things – skunks and porcupines.  And then this Neanderthal brain kicks in and all knowledge goes out the window.  It doesn’t matter if Rover has been skunked once or ten times, the very next time he sees, smells, or suspects a skunk is in the yard, off he goes, with this “hit me again Sam” attitude.  I don’t know if Rover thinks that Pepe LePew has run out of juice or just what but they never learn.  I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people say “Fluffy got skunked again last night, you’d think she’d learn”.  Nope, sorry folks, being skunked once does not forever remain in your dog’s memory as something to avoid in the future.
    Like I said, it’s the same with porcupines.  The only advice I can give there, as far as removing porcupine quills, is that if you cut the quills before attempting to remove them, this supposedly lets the air out of the quills and helps the barbs release more easily. Personally, I would prefer that a professional handle this job, but Rover never seems to find porcupines during Veterinary office hours, none of us could be so lucky.  Rover finds porcupines on the last trip outside at night, right before bed.  Suddenly every light in the house is on, and people are yelling, “get me some pliers”.
    And of course Rover never gets just two or three quills in his nose – oh no, that would be too easy!  Rover has to have a million quills, up inside his mouth, all around his lips, and if you think he’s going to sit there and say “aahh” while you pull a million quills out of his mouth, well sweetie, think again.  And no, he won’t learn to stay away from porcupines any faster than he’ll learn to stay away from skunks.
    Thankfully, in all my years of owning animals, I’ve (knock on wood) only had to de-skunk twice and de-quill once.  That was enough.
    So keep this recipe handy (and the ingredients obviously) “just in case”, and hope you never ever need to use it!