When your dog gets sprayed by a skunk… (Yep. This happened tonight.)

Last Updated on June 20, 2024 by Michelle

How to Clean Skunk Smell off of Your Dog

It was so foul. If your dog gets sprayed by a skunk your stomach will turn, you will cry, you will actually taste the foulness, it is that bad, and you will definitely need to know this…

Tomato juice won’t cut it. And most likely there will be no easy, once-and-done solution. But this mixture worked well for us. (Read on…)

The beginnings of a smelly ride.

We were busy tonight packing for our 3-week road trip. Yep, 3 weeks with Bixby by our side… 4 people, 3-weeks-worth of stuff, and an 80-pound labradoodle. In a 6-person van. And Bixby showed up at our back door covered. No drenched. In skunk spray.

At first, my husband insisted it wasn’t skunk. My daughter insisted it smelled like onions and latex balloons. A reader has since written to me that “it’s nothing like the familiar skunk smells we notice when walking or riding in a car and we pass by from afar. It’s more like a chemical reaction,” and I’d have to agree. A horrible, foul chemical reaction gone very bad.

But, regardless, it didn’t take us long to all agree it was indeed a dreaded, awful skunk spray.

Now that’s a gem of a teen.

We found the online recipe that suggested hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap. I ran to our little country store at 8:56, knowing Sean locks the doors promptly at 9. By the time I got home my teen daughter (she’s really a gem) had already done one round of washing with the little bit of peroxide we had in the house.

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In her unprofessional opinion… but worthy of my attention cause, well, she’s a teen who voluntarily washed our gut-churning, make-you-wanna-puke-it-smells-so-foul dog… the peroxide mixture made no difference.

Now to the credit of this concoction, someone did tell me later that night (on facebook–thank you all you loyal wonderful readers who replied to my pleas of desperation) that this potion works best if you put it on your dog right away after he’s sprayed… BEFORE you get him wet. Too late for that.

A special concoction.

Two other readers gave me great advice about this concoction as well… make sure you read to the end for that.

Also, someone else said it needs to sit on the dog’s fur. Like a long time. We did let it sit 5-10 minutes. But honestly it’s hard for me to judge really. My senses were overpowered and my reason and sense of time and space was blurry and cloudy. The smell started to physically hurt, all the way from my nose down to my gut.

What worked for Bixby?

So what finally worked the best for us? Straight up baking soda. Sprinkled on his coat and then rubbed in really vigorously… while holding our breath cause we thought we just may die. Then we topped that with a coating of Murphy’s Oil Soap . You know, the soap for wood? Another reader typed this suggestion to me while I was in my frantic state. He explained that oil attracts oil and it worked well for his dog.

I ran for the kitchen sink. Oh my goodness was I so thankful to discover I did indeed have some of this wonderful soap sitting under my sink.

I think I had purchased this bottle in 1999. Really. I hardly ever use this stuff, and there was still a few cup’s worth in the dusty old bottle. Thank goodness, cause Sean was probably at home with his PJs on by now, and short of an hour’s drive to a Walmart, I would have nowhere to buy this wonderful salvation of a soap until tomorrow. I tell you this to assure you that even a decade-old version of this soap is definitely potent enough to do a wonderful job.

At first we felt a little worried that it may be too strong for Bixby’s skin or hurt him if we got some in his mouth. But reading the bottle we decided it was actually a pretty “simple” soap and while it may not be the most pleasant thing for him, um, neither is skunk taste that coats your teeth, so we proceeded.

Bixby & Our Chicken

If you’d like to meet Bix under a much more pleasant set of circumstances, when we successfully trained him to be friendly to our free-ranging chicken, you’ll like this post.

What’d Bix think of the whole ordeal?

Strangely enough through all of this, Bixby was rather unphased. I, mind you, was almost passing out from nausea. Oh my gosh, I may smell that odor in my worst nightmares for decades to come.

Or maybe I was light headed from the fact that I was trying to not breathe. For like an hour. But Bix just stared at us with sad eyes. He seemed more upset that he had us all in a tither. And he, being the shy quiet dog that he is (he was a rescue), he hated being forced to be the very drop dead center of the world for a full hour and a half of rubbing, brushing, screaming, crying, washing, and rinsing. Okay, the screaming and crying was all me. But he didn’t seem to mind the taste or the smell. Well, as far as my screaming-and-crying self noticed.

We had realized at this point that the most foul measure of smell was definitely coming from his mouth. We were pretty sure that he walked up to that skunk’s butt and said, “Please, let me enjoy your perfume as an after-dinner mint this evening.” So we brushed his teeth. About 6 times. And then decided we would be buying him a new brush the next day.

Now to rid the house of the smell…

After the multiple brushings and the original peroxide potion, then two times of baking soda followed with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a rinse, we gave him a rest. And almost set the house ablaze by lighting every scented candle I own.

By the way, I say we “rinsed” Bixby, but the oil wouldn’t all come out. We let what we couldn’t rinse out sit on his coat, and then we put him on the porch–minus all the rugs and pillows–for the night.

The oddest suggestion that seemed worthy of a try if I needed it the next day (which thankfully I didn’t)? One reader suggested going to the dollar store for some… sorry, are you ready for this?… Massengil.

I told you it was odd.

Technique matters.

Another great point a few of y’all made was that order and care taken with the three parts of the hydrogen peroxide potion really matters. Suds up with dish soap, put on baking soda–lots of it, and scrub it to the skin–then let that set for about 5 minutes. Cover with peroxide and scrub, letting that set for 15 minutes. Then rinse with vinegar, then water (the acid will break up and float out the skunk oil). And immediately do it all again. Until the smell is gone.

That sounds practical to me, so honestly if I had to start it all over, I think I’d start with that method (not getting him wet until the end). But then again, if I had to start tonight all over again, I’m pretty sure I’d be suicidal.

Other stinky deterrents.

All total, there were quite a few other things y’all suggested that very well may have been a great cure. I didn’t experiment with these after realizing that my combination of baking powder and Murphy’s Oil from 1999 was doing the trick. But other suggestions included Listerine, toothpaste, Avon skin so soft, apple cider vinegar, and club soda. (According to Steve, club soda “Bubbles the stink right out. Not sticky. And if he shakes it doesn’t look like a crime scene.”).

Also, a great point was made that many, if not all, of these choices will strip Bixby’s natural oils, so it’s a good idea to add some fish oils to his diet for a little while to help restore those oils.

Now this is the best news of the night.

Just last month I got this amazing Sea Kelp Daily Supplement from RawPaws. I’d never heard of them before, found them on a google search, reached out to their customer service with a few questions, and was blown away by how much I like this company.

I got the Sea Kelp to help Bixby’s less-than-smelling-like-roses doggie breath and because it sounds like a great vitamin and mineral supplement. I realize I might be crazy (who am I kidding? I am crazy, I know, but I’m okay with that), but just after a few days of sprinkling a little of this sea kelp on each of his meals and I kid you not, his breath was greatly improved. Bill agreed. And he’s a much more reasonable person than I am. (Nobody calls him “crazy.”) If he noticed a difference, there was definitely a difference.

Of course I had no idea last month when this arrived in the mail from RawPaws how very thankful I would be to have a superhero supplement in my corner helping me rid Bix of skunk smell. For the next few days I will double up on his sea kelp and I truly think the skunk odor will linger only in my nightmares.

I think Bix will be taking sea kelp supplements the rest of his days. This stuff is a genuine lifesaver and my new best friend. Well, after Bix.

Now to get the house smelling like roses again.

As for the lingering odor in our house? I’m boiling a mix of vinegar and water, which seems to be helping. And someone mentioned filling bowls with blue Listerine (for some reason, yes, the color matters). Then, she said, I should pour some in dishes with rags and set them all around the house.

So there you have it.

I just wish I didn’t have this advice to impart. I’m sure Bixby would rather I not either.

But, hey, the great news is I think we may be able to embark on our road trip to Kentucky. And survive. Please follow along on facebook and instagram. If you’re not following me in both places, now is a great time to start. I’ll be sharing on different ones as I tour the farm where my momma was born in the rolling hills of West Virginia, farm sit for an amazing reader in Kentucky, and squeeze the sugary juices out of a sorghum plant in Tennessee. (Seriously. Oscar at the Tipton-Haynes Historic House is waiting for me.) I’ll explain more as the trip unfolds, but if you missed my Tuesday Live on facebook this week, you can catch that here. I explained about our 3-week road trip, as well as some huge sadness on the farm that I haven’t had the energy to write about.

But really, please follow along on social media, mainly to make sure we arrive at our first destination safely. Please report it to the authorities if you think we may be asphyxiated somewhere along I-95, with skunk-breath Bix at our feet.

UPDATE: While we were on our road trip, the awesome folks over at PeaceBonePet.com heard about Bixby’s new ode-de-Pepe-Le-Pew and wanted to help us keep our sanity on our travels. They sent us two life savers… a great doggie toothpaste that was a gel we could squirt on daily while traveling in the car, no toothbrush required, and minty-fresh treats that he loved. Go here to check out all the great dental care products PeaceBonePet has for your pooch, whether he smells like Pepe Le Pew or not. Oh, and here’s my live unboxing video… let’s see if Bixby likes these treats…

Meet Bixby & see him “perform” for his absolute favorite treats–>

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