Stinkdog

Our dog Ocean was sleeping with us. The boys were at sleep away camp, and the dog always sleeps with them -- with Colin, actually. Mason sleeps without covers and flops around like a fish. Ocean doesn't want that. But when they are gone, the dog can't possibly sleep alone, can he? So he was "sleeping" with us. But here's the problem: our room has a sliding glass door, and sliding screen door onto the back patio. We sleep with the door open -- wide open in the hot summer months (screen door closed). So Ocean hears all sorts of nocturnal creatures frolicking, and he wants to join them!

Before bedtime, we always send him out to do his business in the front yard, where there are fewer nooks and crannies for critters to lurk. One night, about half an hour after bedtime, he wanted to go back out. I relented, and let him out in the back yard. He trotted around, wasn't doing his business and was just keeping me awake. "Back inside you go, mister!" I chided.

Two nights later, were sound asleep when we heard our screen door slide open! Ocean had used his snout to open the door. My husband leaped out of bed and brought him back in. I fell back asleep. Ten minutes later, my husband let him back out. Ocean ran straight for the darkest corner of the yard, where he must have been hearing some rustling. Before Mike could process what happened, before I knew what he had done, we were hit with the pungent odor of skunk! Mike managed to grab the dog, get him inside and close the door. I was out of bed and the entire house was fill with odor and the sound of me wailing, "nnnnoooooooo!" My husband was ushering the dog in the shower and getting towels from the other end of the house, while I was standing next to the bed with my hands on my knees. He asked, in a slightly annoyed voice, "Are you going to help me with this?" Here's what had to happen before I could help -- I had to shake the melatonin from my brain (I wanted a good night of sleep for a change, that dog was driving me nuts -- oh the irony!), put on pajamas, get my reading glasses, and my ipad to find the anti-skunk shampoo recipe, and then mix the recipe. Here's the most challenging thing of all that had to happen: I had to suppress the urge to inquire, "What the hell where you thinking to let him out in the backyard in the middle of the night?!" This last one took quite a bit of energy, and at least half a minute of deep breathing that probably looked like "not helping," but probably saved a good, oh, hour of sleep later in the night due to not arguing.

Using all of my effort, I got my act together, and helped shower the dog. We also sprayed the house with Febreeze and lit fragrant candles. Now the house looked like Elvira's lair, and smelled like Febreeze and skunk. Once showered and dried, we put the dog in the his crate -- in the boys' room -- for the rest of the night.

The next day, I got the answer to the question I had not asked my husband in the middle of the night -- what was he thinking, letting the dog out? The thought the dog really, really had to go to the bathroom. The dog had been whining. I hadn't heard it; I had fallen back asleep. Good thing I hadn't asked in the middle of the night, when we really need to be working as a team. Questioning his sleepy judgement wasn't going to get the stink off the dog; only the internet recipe was going to do that.