Here’s What You Should Do If You Get Sprayed by a Skunk

Last week, I was spending some time at Reid's Orchard in Owensboro, KY. I have known the Reid family for years and was chatting with Katie and Valerie when their kids drove up on a golf cart. They were screaming, "We caught a skunk! We caught a skunk!"

As it turns out, they indeed caught a skunk. They had set a live trap over in the peach tree section of the orchard and a skunk stumbled into it and got caught. After going to see it and assess the situation, I knew I had to get the skunk out of the trap. I could tell it was confused and scared and just wanted out of that thing. I just didn't know how I was going to free it without getting sprayed.

So, I suited up in frogg toggs (I looked like a Ghostbuster), grabbed a towel to cover the trap and headed back to the peach trees for Operation: Rescue the Cute, But Stinky Skunk.

The skunk started spraying as soon as I straddled the trap to try to get the door open. While the towel served its purpose and protected the majority of my body from those pesky anal glands, my shoes took a beating!

As of this story, those shoes are STILL sitting out on the back deck of my house. They STILL smell like the inside of that skunk's glands.

But, the operation was successful! I freed Pepé Le Pew.

Of course, after walking over to the kids, I asked Jack if I smelled like skunk. Apparently, despite the frogg toggs, I did!

By the way, where was THIS video below when I was trying to game plan how to get this skunk out of that cage without getting sprayed?? I didn't watch the video beforehand, but I utilized many of these tactics successfully.

While I managed to keep most of my body from getting blasted by that skunk's ass, I did get its rather potent scent on my shoes, socks and my shins. I went home and put the shoes outside. I put my two socks in the washing machine on a one-hour cycle of their own. It didn't help. Plus, I got in the bathtub and gave my ankles a 'Karen Silkwood' shower.

Asking for a friend, what are you supposed to do if you get sprayed by a skunk?