What is that smell?

So, we have these two dogs. 

Here is Lexi.  She is a Lab with a pedigree a mile long and comes from hunting champion stock.  At our house, she hunts the food bowl and her bed.

I can't find a picture of Lilly right this second, but she is a Jack Russell/Whippet/? mix.  She looks almost identical to this dog.  She is our grouchy old lady.

Anyway, we are suckers and our dogs stay inside 95% of the time.  However, they do run around in the backyard a little and we let them out to do their business.  Up until Tuesday night, it was a perfect system.

On Tuesday, Tommy let the dogs out one last time before bed.  While they were out, he made the rounds turning out lights and checking to make sure the doors were locked.  You know the drill.  Then he opened the back door and the dogs ran in and went straight to bed.

On Wednesday morning, I woke up and before I even opened my eyes, I said, "What is that smell?  It smells like skunk."  (In case you were wondering, this should have been a clue!)

Tommy got up, let the dogs out for their morning business and we proceeded through our house looking for anything that could be stinky.  We couldn't find anything, but the house was gross.  I settled on the idea that perhaps a skunk had sprayed outside our house and we were just smelling that.  I lit some scented candles, got ready and headed out with the kids.

Fast forward to Wednesday afternoon. 

AnnaLauren and I got home about 5 minutes after Tommy.  I opened our door and the smell almost made me retch.  It was beyond awful!

Tommy was pretty much in the same situation and was in full-on freak out mode.  He had let the dogs outside when he got home and was frantically searching everywhere for the source of the funk.  Finally, I had a moment of clarity and asked, "You don't think it could be the dogs do you?"  Tommy's reply - "No, couldn't be."  Seriously, I think we are slow sometimes. 

I walked out on the back patio, grabbed Lexi's collar and bent down to smell her.  When I got about 12 inches from her fur, it became obvious.  My nose began to burn and I may have come close to throwing up a little in my mouth.  Yeah, what should have been a no-brainer was finally apparent - skunk!

The full-on freak out ramped up even further when we realized that our two putrid animals had been closed up in our bedroom all day to escape the 100 degree heat.  Awesome!

While Tommy speed-dialed PetsMart, I grabbed some garbage bags and threw away the dog beds.  I also lit every pomegranate scented candle that we own.  Good news - the house began to reek slightly less.  Bad news - no de-skunking until 2pm on Thursday! 

So, long story short...

The dogs got to spend the night outside.

We got to spend $250 for de-skunking baths, new collars, new dog beds, activated charcoal to remove the odor from the air & de-skunking chemical for any lasting smells in the carpet, etc.

And, Tommy and I have been made fun of by everyone we know for not noticing that our dogs were skunk sprayed and letting them stay in the house.  It's been a super-fun week!

Hope yours was fun too, but real fun!