skunked

Last night D went to let Chloe into the house and got a sniff. She bent closer and got an overwhelming stink of skunk so she quickly shut the door which startled Chloe who ran away. She came and told Steve and I about it. We were both stunned to think that our cat would have been stupid enough to tangle with a skunk and worried becauses we didn't want to leave her outside overnight but we also, for obvious reasons, didn't want her inside.

While we were discussing this, unbeknownst to us, D and S were plotting to bring the cat in and at least keep her on the screened in porch until we could figure out how to de-stink her. So they cut up garbage bags and got plastic gloves and outfitted D (S being older apparently was wiser to the possibility of skunk smell permeating and "offered" to let D try to catch the cat). She went outside to try to convince Chloe to come inside. It must have been a pretty amusing sight but it scared the cat because every time D rustled closer Chloe backed away. D came into the house very frustrated that she couldn't catch the cat and rather worried that she would spend the night outside and get eaten by a coyote or something.

Eventually the cat came up to the door and asked to be let in. She didn't smell. Hmmmmm. We've decided that there must have been a skunk under the deck where D was letting her in and that's what she smelled. Whew!