Pepper le Phew

Oh what fearful beasties roam around the walls of my nighttime home?

I know we’re in for trouble when the garage door rises and Pepper shoots out like a half starved greyhound out of the traps snarling and barking with the hairs along her back standing up like bristles ( add Rhodesian Ridgeback to the lineage) and pulling the leash so hard I can hear her chest wheeze and my arm is wrenched painfully out of its socket. Of course I can’t see a damn thing but she obviously does and it demands to be intimidated by her. Usually it’s a deer that lopes off into the woods just far enough to be safe but near enough to piss Pepper off mightily. One night it was a Raccoon that sauntered up a tree to do the same thing. Tonight I couldn’t figure out what it was.

It could have been Sasquatch for all I know or illegal hunters. They have been known to wander a little too close to the house, which is both dangerous and criminal.

Pepper wouldn’t give it up. 

She was whining and growling and growl-whining. Eventually I pulled her away and off we trotted to do the usual business of the night.As we came back and got within 10 yards of the garage I had no problem figuring out what it was. The smell was unmistakable. Skunk. Great! My neighbor had his previous dog, an old lab, skunked pretty good one time and told me what a pain it was to get the smell out with tomato sauce. I think he said sauce; it could have been tomato juice.

Whatever, it took a trip to the supermarket and lots and lots of the stuff. As we walked in

through the hazy cloud of Skunkus Butjuicious I thanked heaven that I wasn’t driving to some 24 hour Kwikee Mart. And you’d think that her majesty with her super-refined canine nose gear would be pained by the smell. The opposite. She looked like she smelled roses. Dogs are strange beasts for sure.