Getting Rid Of Skunk Smell

I usually post all kinds of quick and easy dinner ideas, breakfast recipes like baked oatmeal, delicious desserts, and even some kitchen tips, but I will warn you that this post has nothing to do with food! It has to do with how to get rid of skunk smell.

Yes, you read that right, this post is about how I got rid of skunk smell in my house and on my dog.

Most days I love life in the country. One day last week though I was longing for the city. Today I am posting about something most of you will never need, in fact you probably really don’t want this information.

But I want to remember this information, so what better way to remember where the information is then to put it on my blog. And even if you do not need this information I am sure you will get a good laugh out of my story.

We woke up one night last week to our dog barking, more like yelping, quite loudly and wildly. A few minutes later we smelled a skunk. Well, that explained what he was mad at. But we went back to sleep forgetting about it.

Fast forward a few hours. I was awake, but still laying in bed and smelling the skunk smell wondering why, when my daughter came running in to the room yelling, ” Mom, Roy (our German Shepherd) has a skunk in his mouth and daddy is chasing him around the yard trying to get it away.”

I jumped out of bed to see if my husband needed help, really hoping that he didn’t! Well, he did get the skunk away from the dog, but what a mess. It turns out that Roy killed the skunk, but not before all three dogs had been sprayed. And from the smell of the inside of our house I assume a lot of other things outside got sprayed as well.

The entire house smelled horrible. And to make matters worse not only had our dog killed the skunk, all the dogs decided to play with the skunk, so skunk hair was all over the yard.

If you have never had this happen at your house, which I am assuming you have not, it is not pleasant. Not only did the inside of our house smell and the dogs smell, so did the dog house, the front porch, and the door mat on the front porch. All we could smell was skunk.

At this point I was wondering what in the world I was going to do. I knew I had to take care of the dog smell, but I was also wondering how I to get the smell out of my house.

I searched the internet and found a few things for both problems, but then I remembered a friend telling me about a solution you could make to use on animals that had been sprayed. I found the information and decided to give it a try. This is the information she gave me.

Mix together:
1 quart hydrogen peroxide
1/4 c baking soda
1 tsp liquid laundry soap or dish washing detergent

The first two ingredients from an alkaline peroxide that chemically changes the skunk essence into an odorless chemical. The soap breaks down the oily skunk essence an makes it more susceptible to the other chemicals.Chemicals in this formula are harmless and can be used on people, clothing and pets. Use immediately after mixing; do not store (it will expand and can burst a closed container.)

I made some of this up and put it in a spray bottle. I was careful as it was bubbly and I did not want it to explode. I sprayed the dogs down, hosed them off, and sprayed them down again. This worked really well. I could not believe how well.

We have had dogs sprayed in the past and used tomato juice and also tried something called skunk off. I think this was easier than those things and worked as well if not better.

It was not a fun job, the dogs were not at all pleased about being cleaned. It was also time consuming, but worth it. They smelled much better.

We moved the dog house away from the house and the smell got better. We also threw out the door mat. I decided it was not worth trying to save.

But my house was still awful smelling. I called my mom to tell her/complain about my day. I knew she would sympathize/laugh at me since she has spent most of her life living in the country.

Well, she had a great tip that an older lady told her years ago. Vinegar, good old vinegar. It can fix almost anything can’t it.

She told me to place vinegar in small bowls around the house and it would absorb the smell. I was not sure this would work, but I was willing to try. And do you know what it worked.

Now I am assuming it absorbed the smell, but it could be that the vinegar smell over powered the skunk smell. Either way vinegar smells better then skunk.

By the next day when I tossed out the bowls of vinegar you could not smell either the skunk or the vinegar so I think this trick really worked.

Update 2018: This how to get rid of skunk smell post has become one of the most popular posts on my site. I am so glad that people have found it so helpful. There are a lot of helpful comments and stories that readers have shared on this post so please take time to read through them as well.