My dog. Stinks. I should preface this by saying that I have christened myself a cat person. I can name all the cats that I have had in my 30+ years on this Earth: Freddy, Snoopy, Linus, Smokey, Toot, Prissy, Meeshe, Annabell, Marmalade, Tiger, Ninny, Shadow, Calico, Tinker, Willow, Buster, Cuddles, Shammie, Bogart, Boone, Chester and Mowgli. Now I have always had dogs too. I like dogs. I like other people’s dogs. I just prefer cats. Why? I am not sure. I think it has to do with my self-esteem. In trying to keep with character, dogs tend to give you that unconditional love that in my case, I feel is unwarranted. Cats on the other hand, they make you work for every bit of attention that you are able to squeeze from them. Unless of course Chester happens to be your cat. Then you try really hard at times not to make eye contact with him, less he propel all sixteen plus, gray, dandruffy pounds into your lap and try to knead you into oblivion. Chester loves me like a dog.
Which gets me back to my dog. Jasmine. Jasmine belonged to my sister and brother-in-law. They happen to be a family who moves around A LOT due to the fact that he is in the military. So, upon getting stationed in Hawaii, Jazzy was probably looking forward to relaxing in the sun and surf. But alas, due to an extended quarantine period for animals coming into the islands… Jazzy got shipped to Maine to live with us. That was about 4 and a half years ago. Jazzy is an awesome dog. Up until last year, I would have sung her laurels to the highest heavens. Not that I don’t still love her, but, we have had some issues.
Jazzy is very overprotective of my children and of me. Which I think is great, except when it costs me undue stress like when she attacked my sister-in-law’s Jack Russell terrier last year. I have never seen one dog pick up another and shake it like that. Another sister-in-law (did I mention that my husband has a total of nine brothers and sisters?) said it was like something you only see on Animal Planet. Horrid. It landed Jazzy on the poop list. Which she stayed on for the remainder of our mini vacation to visit family, after picking another fight that same evening with Bandit, my sister’s Pitt-bull over the food in her dish. That one sounded worse than it really was (Bandit despite bad press about his breed is a big baby), but none the less, it was disconcerting. Then there was the incident with Mac, the next-door neighbors Sheltie, who wandered over to our compost pile to see what goodies lied within. This has happened on several occasions along with Zeus, the Newfoundland beast from across the road, who is also despite his size, a big softy. But with this visit from Mac, my kids were out and Jazzy did $300+ damage to Mac. Who should have been tied. Which is probably the only thing that saved the whole situation. We were both at fault for not having the dogs tied. End of story. I paid the vet bill for Mac. It seemed the neighborly thing to do.
Jazzy, however, has moved on. Moved on from defending us from the other dogs of the world to…. drum roll please… SKUNKS. In the past three weeks she has been sprayed twice. Once on my husband’s watch (which I was very calm about, I really could have bitched about how he is careless and irresponsible blah blah blah) and again this morning on mine (which is why I am so thankful I stayed calm the other night). As I was cleaning the remains of yesterday’s coffee into the compost bucket (go green!)this morning (so this whole thing happened BC, before coffee), the smell hit me like a steamroller. Thank goodness the kids were still in bed or I may have had to use my memory eraser on them to rid their tiny minds of the vulgar expletives that left my mouth in a stream of futility. The damage had been done. Skunk:2 Jazzy: 0.
Last week we doused her with tomato juice, which was GROSS. She is a medium sized buff colored fuzzball and the tomato juice was worse to get out of her then the skunk smell. Today however after being inundated last week with advice on how to get rid of the stench, I used one quart of hydrogen peroxide, 1/3 cup of baking soda and one tablespoon of dish washing liquid. It worked much better and although my office reeks of skunk (it’s windows happen to be right above the scene of the crime), Jazzy is relatively ok. Other than the fact that she rolled in a big pile of dirt soon after being doused with the hose. Just to let you know this was all witnessed by Boone. Who I am sure was calling her a dumbass as he sat on the deck watching the play-by play. Cats have that kind of attitude. Boone is the bane of Jazzy’s existence. He has given her nothing but grief since we brought him home as a kitten over two years ago. He attacks her unprovoked, he kicks her out of her bed, he flaunts his fluffy cuteness in front of her without mercy. Has she ever touched him? NO, never, not even when he attached himself to her back and rode her howling down the hall. She never reciprocated. Did I mention that Boone is black and white and has a tail that looks remarkably like our foul smelling friend? Coincidence… I think not.
