Dog learns about skunks

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• [dmatos]

  This is not funny, and the guy holding the camera should be ashamed of himself, letting his dog get sprayed like that.  Skunk musk can cause severe irritation and even temporary blindness.  Why do we rage against police officers who mace protestors, but chuckle over unfortunate dogs who receive similar treatment?

  • [teapot]

    Waa waa. If the owner wasn’t there the dog would’ve got sprayed anyway. The only serious health concern I can dig up that could be caused when a dog gets sprayed by a skunk is Heinz body anemia which is the same thing that happens when a dog or a cat eats onion.. you gonna sit outside a vet clinic and be alarmed when people show up with their dogs who’ve eaten any number of things they shouldn’t have?

    These kinds of interactions happen naturally when we’re not around – what makes this any worse? Because it’s on tape and the guy’s laughing? That’s just silly. How bout you get your knickers in a knot over things that are seriously disturbing such as the animal testing & animal cruelty accusations against IAMS.

    http://www.iamscruelty.com/

    • [Martijn Vos]

      If it’s his dog and he wasn’t there, his dog would likely also not be there.

    • [Kay Shapero]

       He wasn’t just filming, he was encouraging the dog to get close by his tone and for the most part his statements.  I hope the dog came riiiiight up to him and put his head on his lap.

      Bring out the tomato juice!!

• [Glaurung_quena]

  The callous cruelty of this dog owner to his pet’s distress makes me furious.  

  • [usonia]

     Agreed…though I see the value in letting a dog learn (which it will) that that animal is a problem, the owner is a real asshole.

  • [Sirkowski]

    Nah, totally worth the laugh.

  • [mjfgates]

     I’m more unhappy about the cruelty to the skunk, but…

• [chuckwaugh]

  A few years ago we had a skunk come in the cat door and nail our dog in the bedroom are of our house at 3:00am.  Our dog was foaming at the mouth like a B-movie rabid dog, and was choking and shaking his head like mad. 
  I got a door open and the skunk raced out of there (he was rather upset also, I’m sure).
  A mixture of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide cleaned the dog completely in two washes.
  The house took a bunch of scrubbing and a week of boiling white vinegar to get it to the point that no one could tell we’d been skunked.

  • [Preston Sturges]

    I borrowed a friends cabin a week after their dog got skunked.  I tore up the carpet in the foyer and burned it (the rug).  They were OK with this. 

    • [Martijn Vos]

      The worst I’ve experienced was cat spray, and that’s bad enough.

• [skeptacally]

  christ, what an asshole.

• [Ramone]

  Considering how powerful the dog’s olfactory sense is, wouldn’t this be comparable to a human taking a shot of pepper spray from point-blank?

  • [Alex Stapleton]

    Since when did Skunk spray contain vast quantities of pure capsicum? Smelling awful is nothing at all like having severe chemical burns in your airways.

    • [chgoliz]

      Skunk spray is a defensive weapon.  It’s not eau de lavender, it’s eau de sulphur….in other words: yes, it’s a chemical burn to your mucus membranes.

• [Dustin Driver]

  Super-turbo jerk. The owner, not the skunk.

• [zuludaddy]

  Laughing at an animal in pain? That he apparently calls his own? Not doing anything to ameliorate the situation once his dog was sprayed? GIVING PROPS TO THE SKUNK? 

  Cruel bastard. 

• [Terrin Bell]

  The owner is quite cruel to both the dog and the skunk. Skunk spray is essentially a powerful acid and oil combination. The acid etches the oil into the skin of whatever the skunk sprays. The spray is actually powerful enough to cause blindness.  There is no reason to let the dog learn this lesson.

  • [Stephen Schenck]

    That’s… implausible-sounding. Do you have any citation for that claim? Aren’t weak acids usually used to help break down the odor-causing compounds?

    • [Alan Wexelblat]

      There are reasonably reliable online sources and I asked a vet: skunk spray can cause temporary blindness.

      The vet said that if a pet comes in that has been skunk sprayed they always wash the eyes thoroughly with sterile saline solution in order to avoid this. There is no known case of permanent blindness from skunk spray (that I could find).

      As for the weak acid, that’s basic chemistry. In the presence of a strong acid a weak acid acts like a weak base and the resulting product is lower pH. Most weak acids you find around the house (e.g. tomato juice) have large quantities of water as well, which helps wash away the odorous compounds.

  • [Aloisius]

    There are no documented cases of permanent blindness (or any lasting permanent effects) of skunk spray. It can cause temporary blindness (it contains a bit of sulfuric acid).

    There is some speculation that it can cause a type of anemia in dogs if left untreated, but if it happens, it is incredibly uncommon. Concern seems to stem from one paper, not from a run of dog anemia cases at vets.

• [misscleocallmenow]

  My usual knee-jerk reaction to play devil’s advocate is not working here. The owner is a prick.

• [snagglepuss]

  There are plenty of reasons to let that dog learn that lesson. Not chasing a skunk onto a busy road and avoiding the chance of rabies leap to mind.

  Skunk funk does not kill. If it did, they’d be at the top of the food chain. A reckless pup learned a valuable lesson – He just learned it the hard way.

  • [octolover]

    agreed.  the owner could have been a bit quicker to try and help the dog out, but it won’t bother or chase a skunk again.

    • [MelancholyBaby]

      ” but it won’t bother or chase a skunk again ” — ah, not necessarily. My dog was sprayed full in the face by a skunk years ago (I was desperately trying to drag him away from it at the time, and not having any luck), and he still has to be  pulled away from every skunk he sees.  He’s a sweetheart, but not the sharpest crayon in the box …

    • [Vickie Kostecki]

      My dog never learned about skunks. She was sprayed three times, over three consecutive years. 

  • [Glaurung_quena]

     I have no problem with an owner letting their dog learn that skunks are not to be trifled with.  Laughing at the dog after it’s been sprayed, instead of offering help and sympathy, however, is beyond the pale.

• [Kevin Pierce]

  What’s next?  Dog learns about porcupines?

  edit: I’ve had dogs interact with skunks, porcupines and raccoons. While you can wash away the skunk, porcupine and raccoon damage requires a veternarian.

  • [Roy Benevidez]

     Owner learns about being an assh — wait, he is incapable of learning.

  • [Matthew Petty]

    Dog learns about Duck and Cover

  • [Larry]

    Dog learns about Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.

• [Cowicide]

  I’m just here for the concern trolling.  Carry on…

  • [silkox]

     You got that right! That’s one patient skunk, though.

    • [vrplumber]

      Right? I thought the dog was going to get a face full much sooner than he did.

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      The skunk has to balance the need to turn around to spray with the risk of being bitten when it’s turned around.

    • [nosehat]

       As I understand it, it takes a considerable amount of time for a skunk to “recharge” its sprayer after a spray.  So there’s a significant cost to the animal to employ this defense.  They really only use it in a life-or-death scenario.

      • [Cowicide]

        So that’s how a skunk works.

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        My experience with skunks in the wild is that they’re pretty blasé about people, at least.  I’ve had them walk within a couple of feet of me without any kind of threat behavior.  Same thing with porcupines.

    • [Guest]

       Why can’t we be friends? why cant we be friends? …

• [Rob Beschizza]

  I ♥ CONCERN TROLLS

• [Preston Sturges]

  Clearly that dog sleeps outside, and they aren’t planning a long car trip home any time soon. 

• [falnfenix]

  …wow.  i wonder if any of the concern trolls live anywhere near the country.  my guess is no.

• [Hugh Johnson]

  It’s from Florida, so, no surprise there.

• [chuck dunlap]

  Two words. ASS CLOWN. Someone should take him and shove his face in a skunk’s butt. 

• [exoskeletor]

  I had a pet skunk that I found as a kit in my horse stable (no, I wasn’t the kit, dammit). It was one of my favorite pets until my vet told me (per-internet days), when I inquired about scent gland removal, they could spontaneously generate rabies as adults. To this days I’ve never actually looked that up, probably because I don’t want to find he was wrong as I’d be crushed since I gave him away. I ended up giving him to my mother-in-law who probably kept him for the rest of his life, and she only got spayed once for stepping on his foot  He was one of my favorite pets  – dogs are just too stupid for me ;) – playful and pretty cuddly too.

  • [Stonewalker]

     I now want a pet skunk, they sound like they make awesome little friends.

  • [octolover]

    my grandma had a pet skunk when my dad and aunts were kids.  she was already descented when they got her, so no issues there.  she could walk on a leash, she would tug at my grandma’s apron/skirt/pants leg when she wanted a treat, and one of my favorite pics of her shows one of my aunts, age maybe 8, in her swimsuit giving the skunk a bath in a bucket in the back yard.   it never had any health problems and died of old age.

    they can be sweet and tame, but they are also nocturnal by nature and sometimes grumpy (they stomp their feet when displeased, which is in nature a precursor to the spray).  also, like ferrets, they can chew up whatever they like, and can fit into almost anything — my grandpa had to disassemble the kitchen cabinets once to remove her after she somehow got behind and beneath them.

    • [exoskeletor]

       Oh yeah, he did love to stomp, and sometimes did it playfully.

      After my mother-in-law got a hold of him he couldn’t ever fit into anything smaller than probably a shoe box. The way she fed him bordered on animal cruelty.

• [Stonewalker]

  That dog certainly did look like it was in pain, but how about we don’t all result to knee-jerk emotionalism?  Dog training and pyschology is a real thing.  Science and learning, that kind of stuff.  I presume there exists some excepted ways of dealing with  dogs and skunks, yea?

  As far as how the owner acted – he did exactly the correct thing.  When a dog is scared, the worst thing it’s owner can do is change his behavior to try to comfort the dog, this let’s the terrified dog know that the owner now ALSO thinks there is something bad going on.

  Again, science is a thing…  let’s use it.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Again, science is a thing… let’s use it.

    Making shit up and calling it science without providing any citations is also a thing. Let’s not use it.

    • [Incipient Madness]

      I used to work with a dog trainer and she said something similar. If a dog has anxiety problems, you should not reassure the dog. That will convince the dog that  he or she was right to be anxious or aggressive. Saw her turn many anxious and aggressive dogs into confident sweethearts.

      But the big difference is that these were dogs who were spooked by things like meeting new people or bicyclists going by. This is a SKUNK, there is no problem with freaking out. The dog is rightfully disturbed and no damage can be done by the humans taking immediate action.

  • [Larry]

    How about using some common sense and getting the dog away BEFORE it got sprayed.  He did NOT do exactly the correct thing.  He was an ass.

• [Andrew McKay]

  Not that I think the owner should have let his dog do that, but in the country getting sprayed by a skunk is like a dog’s right of passage.  I don’t of many farm dogs or dog that spends a lot of time roaming around in the country that hasn’t been sprayed by a skunk.  Dog smells for a while and is a bit sulky and a few days later they’re back to their selves.  Though with a good lesson learned, and a healthy respect for a skunk’s personal space. :P

• [Erik Leander]

  Wow……the owner of this dog is a piece of sh!t.  Why would anyone subject their dog to this?  I didn’t even get through the entire video…..was an ass!

• [kprager]

  My first thought was: why is the skunk out during the day?  Rabies is one reason.

  • [surreality]

     Yeah, that was my immediate reaction. We had four dogs once that all got sprayed by a baby rabid skunk. they all got rabies shots, including my mother who eventually went out to trap the skunk under something and to call animal control. If it was at night, maybe the dog could “learn a lesson”, but  rabies is not a lesson to learn…

• [Larry]

  What a dumbass.  Let’s his dog tangle with a skunk, with no real attempt to step in obviously for the purpose of making this video.  So now he has a really foul smelling dog to deal with.  Really funny, huh.  

• [Jesseham]

  Kibble was never quite the same…

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  Not one comment about a domestic animal harassing a wild animal and possibly biting it while the owner looks on giggling?

  • [RJ]

     I believe the owner’s lack of intervention is kinda the point of some people’s annoyance here.

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      It all seems to revolve around concern for the dog’s welfare, without regard for the poor skunk. If only the dog and the skunk could join forces and take down that motherfucker.

      • [saurabh]

        “Some Terran genius had worked it out that the real king of the wilds is not the lion nor the grizzly bear but a kittenish creature named Joe Skunk whose every battle was a victorious rearguard action, so to speak.” — Eric Frank Russell, ‘Next of Kin’

      • [Incipient Madness]

        Yeah, but it’s the Gulf coast. There will always be more skunks, possums, armadillos, and snakes. And now we have nutria too.

        I’d say nature is unkillable down here, but the Carolina parakeet was hunted to extinction for its colorful feathers and the Florida panther was going extinct until it was crossed with cougars from Texas. 

  • [exoskeletor]

     Watching it run around the skunk the way it did reminds me of every video I’ve ever seen of canines (dogs, wolves, african wild dogs, jackals (?)) hunting. I was actually kind of glad when the dog received a blast of gland juice. He was getting perilously close to hurting that skunk.

    My dogs ganged up on my favorite cat in much the same way and ended up killing it. I don’t have that much love for dog hunting tactics. They look almost playful as they circle and look for an opening. Kind of creepy to me.

• [RJ]

  How is it acceptable to let an unwitting dog suffer, yet it’s unacceptable to let a bunch of college kids catch a face-full of pepper spray?

  • [exoskeletor]

    Well…college kids didn’t set out to bite the police.

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      Maybe that was a flaw in their strategy.

  • [TheMudshark]

    That´s a great comparison because college kids and dogs are the exact same thing, not to mention cops and skunks.

• [Cola Johnson]

  It’s always interesting (and often maddening) where people draw the line where it comes to pet humor.  I’ve seen people insist until they are blue in the face that cats experiencing extreme distress are totes okay when all of the evidence shows that stress can have serious consequences on the health of the animal.  Maybe I’m callous but dogs getting skunked has always been presented to me as a rite of passage for them and their owners.  It’s not nearly as gruesome as getting quilled, and it was supposed to be funny when it happened to Chance in Homeward Bound (at least initially, “He bit me with his BUTT!”). 

  While I’m pretty sure he didn’t leave his dog to writhe in distress after the camera went off, he should have intervened–if not for the dog’s sake, then for the skunk’s.  It’s one thing to have a hearty laugh at the expense of a dog who obviously learned this lesson when you weren’t looking, and quite another to egg them on to possible bloodshed.

• [ChrisLeBeouf]

  Had the owner attempted to go get the dog, the dog would have interpreted that as the owner backing him up and then, emboldened, gone in for a bite anyway. Lucky it was just skunk and not a poisonous snake. As it is, the dog will be fine.

  • [Guest]

    I see you speak dog. I agree.

• [doglvr88]

  This owner is an a**hole. His dog’s eyes are burning and he’s laughing. Do your dog a favor and drop him off at the pound. He’d be better off there than with you.

• [Gina Martin]

  The owner is a complete asshat.  His dog should not be “taught” by getting sprayed.  The owner should have taught the dog a bomb proof recall if he was allowing it off leash.  He failed to do so.  The dog may decide that he now needs to do a pre-emptive attack the next time he sees a skunk, or something that reminds him of a skunk.  This owner is not at all qualified to own a dog, much less one that he doesn’t keep on leash.

  • [Sunny Jim]

     Good looking out so humanely for the dog, Gina. Keep him tied up with a rope around his neck if you love him.