Homemade Skunk Shampoo
Close encounters of the smelliest kind
Dogs and skunks don’t mix. Or rather, they do, too often, with noisome results of which your entire neighborhood will be immediately aware. A swift remedy is essential.
After too much personal experience with bathing uncooperative cats and water-loving golden retriever in every skunk remedy from the weirdest folk tinctures to the priciest commercial one, here is the one that we stock on our shelves at home:
Maggie MacDonald’s Homemade Anti-Skunk Shampoo
1 quart of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide
1/2 cup of Baking Soda
1 teaspoon of liquid soap (Dawn works well)
Combine ingredients to make a shampoo. Large dogs may require a triple batch. Rub vigorously. Repeat as necessary. Rinse well.
Note: Hydrogen peroxide is often thought of as a bleaching agent. Online instructions for lightening human hair recommend applying a peroxide and soda mixture and letting it sit for more than an hour. Shampooing my golden’s fur with this mixture, I left it on for a moment or two, and could detect no change in the color after I’d rinsed it out well.
The smell, on the other hand, was greatly diminished!
This shampoo recipe is in the Maggie McDonald Mystery series, Cliff Hanger. In all honesty, the brilliant creator of this concoction is unknown to me. I only attest that it works. And that my veterinarian recommended it.