On Monday evening I shot a small, young deer in dusk and mist. It dropped on the spot and I continued waiting for a possible second one. When it was too dark to shoot I drove with my pick-up up to the deer on the field and loaded it. I felt it was very light but could hardly investigate it otherwise in the darkness. Once back at home in electric light I saw it was one of those rare ones suffering from a virus infection in the intestines. I drove it back to the field and hide it in some bushes, Tex-Mex for the foxes. Then I forgot about it.

 

Today I was in the afternoon to the same field to run the dogs a little. I remembered the carcass but as the wind blew from us toward the carcass several hundred meters away I thought that the dogs would not notice it. Well they did not but the parts of the carcass had moved! Foxes had teared it into pieces and one of the pieces, probably the stomach, was found by Briz. I saw her rolling in the grass and with cold frogs jumping on my back I yelled at her to stop rolling and come here.

 

She did so but it was already too late. She had reached all time high as far as scent level was concerned. There was nothing to do for the moment, the harm had been done, so we continued into the forest towards the wind. I sent her out, wanted to keep her as far from me as possible and she vanished among the branches. I could still feel the awful smell from her I as now and then crossed her scent trail. I now knew what it was like to be a birddog, how it felt to feel the scent of game when out questing.

 

The only difference would be that a birddog will not come close to throwing up when it hits the scent cone of a bird. Otherwise it was a good practical lesson for me. Now I know a bit more about the scent cone discussion!

 

Well, we came back to my pick-up and I noticed that not even Foxy, who also now and then like to improve her odour a bit with whatever can be found in the nature, liked to be too close to Briz. I put Foxy in the coupe' and had Briz to jump up on the open platform in the rear of the car. I have trained the dogs to ride there at summer time since my old P-U lacks AC but when you see them travelling there late in the autumn you can be sure that they travel 1:st skunk class! I spread her odour around the village before finally coming home.

 

Back home I first, from a distance,  hosed Briz down with warm water so I could get close enough to put on some huge amounts of dish washing detergent, using chemical protection gloves. The next treatment was with a good shampoo and then a long flushing with warm water. Now she was ready to be rubbed dry with a towel. That does not do anything good for the oil content in her coat so now she looks like an electrocuted racoon-dog...

 

The long washing treatment made her rather tired and she slept for many hours before she had forgotten it and started to look normal again.

 

1:st skunk washer Torsti

Borta Med Vindens Kennel
"Ask not what your dog can do for you.
Ask what you can do for your dog."
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