A guest post by Poodle Oodle, Editor of Poodle Times: By, For and About the Poodle Community. You don't have to be a poodle to love Poodle Times. (An equal opportunity publication.)

So I was taking care of before-bed business when a dark stranger wearing a white stripe breached the back yard perimeter. I bayed like a banshee and gave chase. He scampered away and I almost had him when I choked on an evil, clinging cloud of peeeeeeeeeyewwwwwww! Help! I bang! clang! clanged! the bell hanging from the door knob.

“Ugh! What’s that nasty smell?” Mom screwed her eyebrows down, her lips up and her cheeks in, pressing her nostrils shut. As if that would help. “Peeeeyewwwww!” If she knew the answer, why did she ask? She slammed the back door shut. I ran to the bedroom and rubbed my head and snoot all over the bed trying to get the skank off. No luck uck uck uck.

“God, what is that stench?” She rammed the bedroom window down tight. “It’s rolling in.”

I ran to the living room and jumped up on the couch. Maybe the ruff ruff ruff fabric would get it off off off. Mom followed me, lip curled to nose and slapped shut the windows, “Please god! Blow it away soon.” Amen to that.

At the office next morning, Mom’s face corrugated again, “Feh! Here too!” She checked all the windows. “Closed. Where’s it coming from?” She shrugged, “Let’s get to work.”

I led the way (that’s my job) to the patient waiting room— Riley Goodbellyrubs! Yay!— then into Mom’s clinical office. They sat on stuffed chairs. I sat at Riley’s feet. He leaned down, stroked me under the chin, and scrunched his face into his nose, “She’s skunked!!!

“What?!”

“You can’t smell it?”

Mom wafted humid embarrassment. “I didn't know what it was. And, I thought it was coming from outside!”

“Try tomato juice.”

Mom looked at me in a way I didn’t like, and stood up.

“Oh, don’t take her away. It’s not that bad.” Mom sat down.

I gave Riley a look of love, and would have jumped on his lap for belly rubs, but duty before pleasure. I spent the session (and the rest of the day) licking my front paws, rubbing them against my snoot, licking the skank off (Aack!), washing my face, licking my paws off (Ehck!), over and over.

We stopped at PetStore on the way home: “Nature’s Miracle Skunk better work a miracle.” From her lips to god’s ear. Mom stripped the bed, sniffed the mattress, backed away, and sprayed it in wide arcs with the bottle. “Take that! And that! Be gone Foul Beast! Away!” She changed hands and sprayed some more.

She took off my collar— Oh no! A bath! I shivered so hard I lost hair. But not where it mattered. Kneeling, she stuck me under the running faucet, and commanded, “Stand. Stay.” A gagging stench rose off me and ate all the air. We stared at each other in shock.

She soaked me from a bottle, and looked at her watch, “Five minutes, little girl, five minutes.” I shook myself head-to-tail, spraying Mom. Ha! She held up a towel between us like a matador’s cape. “Ha! Right back atcha!” O yay! She wants to play! I vaulted to the left.

She grabbed me— “Did you hear me say, Break?” She held me under the running tap— Thanks for nothing! “Now, Stay.” I sighed.

The water stopped, “OK, Break. Jump out.” O happy day! She toweled me. I head-to-tailed a few times, then she sniffed me. First the back end— So polite!— then the snoot. She groaned, shook her head, sat back on her legs, and— Were those tears in her eyes?

Till bed, she trotted from room to room, sniffling and sniffing, tossing things in the wash, in the dryer, in the wash, in the dryer.

After work next day, she took my collar off— No! She cornered me, “I’m sorry.” Not sorry enough! I jumped out the tub; she grabbed me. “Let’s get this over with.”

She wet me down— The stench!— then shook all over me a white powder from a gold box, massaging it into my hair, especially around my chops. I licked my lips and stretched my tongue way back, reaching for more: salty, soapy, not bad. “Cut that out! That baking soda has to sit five minutes.”

She rubbed my snoot, head, behind the ears— Ah! Nice!— moving down my neck to give me a total body massage. Then she worked her way back to my snoot. Mmmmm. Yes! She looked at her watch— Don’t stop!— and doused me with vinegar.

I sizzled like onions hitting hot oil in a cast iron skillet. I foamed like the lava in Bro’s third grade volcano experiment. I smelled like a salad! I’m a carnivore!

Mom! How could you! She burst out laughing, unashamed. “I know. Please god, let it work.” She looked at her watch, and after forever, shoved me under the tap. I got her good and wet, is all I have to say. She sniffed my snoot. “A bit better.”

My salad day done, it was baths out the patootie till she took me to Bess Friend, the groomer. Who groomed me naked! Some friend!

Mom! How could you let her?! She sniffed my face, unashamed. “Still a little. But much better.”

She turned to Bess, “Thank you!”

I snorted. “Gazunheit!” Right.

Bess smiled. “Next time, god forbid there is a next time, don’t wet her down. That sets the smell. Make a paste of a box of baking soda, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a couple of squirts of dish detergent, massage it in, wait five ten minutes then rinse it out. That works best in my experience.”

“Why didn’t I call you first?” Mom shook her head. “What a week.” She stroked my head. “Will the peroxide bleach her hair?” Bess nodded.

Only one bath to get the skank off? Wow wow wow! Blondes do have more fun.