Bump in the Smelly Night

I will explain a few things about myself, before relating a tale of nightly terror. Well, kind of scary anyway. I am a probation and parole officer dealing with felons. I live out in the country and I tend to have a little different reaction to a noise outside my house late at night than someone else might. I am married and my wife occasionally travels with her father. My in-laws were involved in horse racing in the past, my mother-in-law being a retired jockey and my father-in-law is a licensed horse trainer. They hooked up with some horse breeders who run in Kentucky and Indiana and have started back into the business during the session. The racing season is fairly short, only a couple of months out of the year around here, and it starts in July. There is a large horse sale in Ochala Florida in the winter, where a lot of the racehorse breeders sell their stock. My father-in-law took some horses there last year and my wife went with. She was gone about 4 days.

I tend to revert back to my pre-married, carefree paranoid bachelor life when wifey leaves. We have a small zoo, and at this time we were slaves to 3 Saint Bernards, 5 cats, 1 cockatiel, and some fish. The dogs live in a fenced-in back yard with a large house. One of the dogs barks a lot and I ignore her. The male usually barks only when something is wrong, and if the other female barks, terrorists are attacking. I was playing on my computer and listening to the history channel when the male dog went into a barking frenzy. I went to the front room and checked the porch and front yard through the window. There was no one on the porch and no visitors in the driveway. I also went out the front door onto the porch and checked the front yard. I saw nothing unusual. The barking had stopped, so I figured that someone had probably been in the field behind the house or at my uncle’s barn. I returned to my computer. It was around 8:00 PM.

There were three more barking spells in the next 90 minutes and I was a little nervous. Something was upsetting the male dog badly, but not bothering the females. I had been out in the yard with pistol and flashlight without finding anything. I had scanned the field behind the house and my barn without finding anything unusual. I had checked the backyard from the house without seeing anything unusual. I had the mag-light and the hi-power sitting beside my keyboard and the front door deadbolted by 10:00 PM.

It was cold outside, so when the dog started barking again I put on a jacket, picked up my gear and went out the front door. I called the dogs to the fence and the male wouldn’t come to me. He would come to the corner of the house, look back into the back yard, bark, look at me, and run back around the house. I decided that what ever had him in a fit was IN the backyard, but was not visible from a window. I didn’t want to fight the female dogs to get into the gate, so I went through the house and out the back door.

I guess it might help at this point to mention that I worked my way through 5 ½ years of college at a swimming pool company. I spent 11 years with them, 10 in the pool supply store where we sold a lot of chlorine. I also have a lot of sinus problems, so I don’t have a very good sense of smell. I went out onto the back porch to discover the male dog breakdancing. He was rolling around on the ground furiously scraping his noise and head on the ground. He would then get up run into his house, bark viciously, run out and breakdance. Then he would do it over again. I quietly slipped down the steps, and took a long, slow, circuitous path to a point I could peer into the door of the doghouse, but far enough away I hoped to have time to react if something came out at me. I couldn’t imagine what could possibly be in the house that would have him upset, but which the two female dogs would completely ignore.

I disengaged the safety on the hi-power and turned on the mag light shining it into the doghouse. I was glad I had put some distance between the doghouse and me. The doghouse was not fancy, but it was large enough to house the 3 Saints plus a few of their friends. A small, black and white bundle of fur was in the back right corner of the house as I face it. I was confronting a small skunk, possibly half grown. It was spraying the dog every time the dog run in and barked at it. Then, and only then, did I become aware of the strong smell permeating the atmosphere.

I now had a problem. If I shot and missed, I might get sprayed. I also didn’t really want to shoot the little thing as it was only trying to protect itself, but what did I do? The dog would not leave the animal alone. I also had to consider what would happen to the bullet when it went through to skunk, or if I missed. I wasn’t sure I could safely shoot the skunk and not risk putting a hole in my home. I also have to admit that I don’t hunt, and while I love to shoot, I prefer to shoot targets that are not alive. I will shoot an animal if circumstances require it, but prefer to live and let live if possible. I went into the house and retrieved leashes for the dogs. I took the two females to the barn and put them into a stall we customized as a nursery when we were breeding the Saints. I then went back and retrieve the stinky male dog. I had to really drag the stupid dog away from the skunk manor resort. I left the gate open.

The skunk was gone the next morning when I checked, but the smell covered the house and yard. The smell lingered for two weeks in the front yard. The dog actually lost his odor in about a week. The backyard smelled skunky for about a month and the doghouse still has a slightly skunky odor a year and a half later.