Category Archives: Penny Carroll

Pep’s surgery went well and she’s doing great!

Thank you very much 🙂

Pep went in to Kirkwood Animal and Dr. Ueno’s on Friday morning and had two fatty cysts removed from her chest & belly. One was under a muscle, so removing that resulted in a painful area / suture. Pep was pretty near comatose and very sensitive on Friday night, yesterday was out and about a bit and today is racked out on “their” couch in the den. She seems to be doing well and we are very relieved the cysts were not the worrying kind.

Skunk be gone!

One night last week, Pan and I were slipping in to our “going to bed” groove… making sure coffee things were ready for the next morning, reading glasses were in their “can’t see a damn thing, where’d I put my glasses” place. As I was walking in our suite to run a hot bath, Pan leading me by a few steps, I heard the dogs “alarm” in the den, barking very loud and aggressively. It being 9:30 and all, I thought, “That’s strange” and heard Joanne talking to them as she went to open the door.

Just as she was opening the door I realized what was probably happening – a skunk was walking near the back door. uh oh.

DON’T OPEN THE DO…

Too late.

Pep bolted out the door and apparently met the skunk head, er, tail-on, and got blasted directly in the face. (Penny being a bit wiser, let Pep take the lead and the hit. Old age and wisdom beats youth and enthusiasm almost every time – never forget that.)

I don’t know if you’ve ever been at ground-zero of a skunk blast, but it’s nothing like what you smell after the fluid has been atomized in the air – it reeks of what smells like coffee and something horrible… like propane at the source. It’s terrible.

Well, Pep took the hit and was on her haunches, not able to see and reeling on the deck… scratching at her face, eyes, muzzle… very painful to watch so it must have been terrible for her to experience. Since we’ve done the dog-got-skunked dance before, we did what we always do: grabbed the skunk-scent-remover recipe from the internet, mixed the solution and in 10 minutes, Pep was as fresh as a daisy (well, for Pep, anyway 😉 and Penny was next up for her bath. An hour after the incident, everyone was bright and shiny and I got my bath with Pan serving as lifeguard as she does every night.

Note to self: When opening the back door at night with the dogs barking loudly, always knock on the door and say the magic words, “Skunk be gone” before letting loose the pack.