Obviously, this was a squirrel who understood the polite way to introduce herself to a dog. I wanted to be polite as well, so I trotted up to give her butt a good sniff. My new friend lifted up her tail so I could smell better. This was also new information, that some squirrels wanted so much to be like dogs that they had learned how to act like us.
I could hear Maggie Rose trying to come through the bush after us. “Dad! Lily ran after a skunk!” she called.
“No, Lily!” Dad shouted.
Why would anyone say “No!” about meeting a new friend? People should really think harder about how they use that word. Other than “bath,” it was the worst thing humans could ever say. I sniffed my new friend’s butt more deeply.
“Call her! We can’t let her get sprayed by that skunk, Maggie Rose!” Dad yelled.
“Lily, come here! Get away from the skunk!” my girl called out.
There were two words in that sentence that I knew—“Lily” and “come.” And Maggie Rose was saying a new word I had never heard before. Dad had said that word, too.
“Skunk.” They were saying “skunk.”
Perhaps they meant that my new friend was called skunk, not squirrel. Maybe that’s why it didn’t run up a tree or down a hole or into a giant hose.
I left the skunk and ran toward my girl, because she’d said “come.” I always go to her when she says that.
Well, most of the time.
Some of the time, anyway.
Oddly, as I approached, wagging happily, Maggie Rose did not seem glad to see me. She backed away as I came closer. What was wrong?
“Great,” Dad groaned. “Lily got sprayed by that skunk. Take her down to the pond, Maggie Rose. I’ve still got some shampoo in the truck. I’ll go fetch it. You get her fur wet. But try not to let her rub against you, or we’ll have to clean you, too.”
“Come on, Lily,” Maggie Rose urged, moving backward toward the big water. “Lily, follow me—no, don’t touch me!” She skipped out of my way. “Come, Lily!”
This was an extremely confusing game. She was calling me, but then when I obeyed, she said “no.” Did she want me close to her or not? But I followed her, because she’s my girl.
Maggie Rose kicked off her shoes and waded right into the water. I sat on the shore and watched curiously. She waded up to her knees and then called to me. “Lily, come!”
So now she wanted me near her again. I splashed happily into the water.
Maggie Rose backed away from me. “It’s so cold!” she exclaimed. She scooped up a handful of water and tossed it at me. “Better get you wet. Here, Lily! We need to give you a bath!”
I froze. A bath? Another bath? Was that why we were here? That couldn’t be true, could it?
I shook my head to get rid of the water and spotted something floating right behind my girl. A stick! A stick would take her mind off the whole bath subject. I lunged at it. It felt funny, trying to run in the heavy water. I pushed through it and heaved myself forward.
Suddenly there was no more sand under my paws. It had dropped away, and all I could touch was water. It was like jumping into one of the holes Craig and Bryan sometimes dug in the field.
I was sinking.
This was very interesting. I had never been underneath water before. I kept trying to run, but my running was not taking me anywhere. My paws brushed pebbles and then I was standing, looking up, where the sun was acting very crazy, dancing and bobbing at the surface of the water.
I could faintly hear Maggie Rose calling, “Lily! Lily!” I hoped she would soon realize that I couldn’t run to her. I was a good dog who always came when I was called, but not now!
I couldn’t even really see my girl.
I couldn’t smell her.
I could hardly hear her.
I saw her wobble and jump as she waded toward me. My girl’s hands plunged through the clear water to grab me and pull me up to the surface. “Lily! I’ve got you!” she gasped.
She held me tight to her chest. She was struggling, as if she were trying to run just as I had been. But she wasn’t getting anywhere.
The water was nearly over my head. Only my nose and eyes were out. I was glad about my nose, because I realized now that I had not been able to breathe during that underwater time.
Maggie Rose was up to her neck, too. Her head was tipped back in the water so that just her face was out. “Dad!” she shouted.
Dad came running down the path and leaped into the water with us. Now we were all playing this strange water game.
People usually decide what dogs are going to do, but in my opinion, there are other games that are more fun. Like Chase-Me. Or Pull-on-Craig’s-Socks.
Dad grabbed Maggie Rose and me together. “I’ve got you both.” He picked us up and carried us to the shore. Then he sat down on a big log with my girl on his lap, hugging her.
I squirmed away and ran in a few circles and tried to shake the water out of my fur. What were we going to do next? Maybe it would involve bacon.
My girl was shivering. “You’re okay. You’re okay,” Dad told her. “Lily’s okay, too.”
“I was scared,” Maggie Rose replied weakly. “Lily just sank. I thought she’d dog paddle.”
“Not all dogs can swim,” Dad told her. “Lily’s a pit bull mix, and pits are pretty heavy. All that muscle. They can’t float, so some of them can’t doggy paddle. Don’t go in after her again, Maggie Rose, hear me? Call for me. Got it?”
Maggie Rose nodded.
Dad hugged her tightly. Then he laughed just a little bit. “Great. We’re all going to smell like skunk now.”
Maggie Rose laughed a little, too.
I wagged.
Dad lifted his hands to his face and smelled them.
He frowned.
8
Dad put his face in Maggie Rose’s hair and inhaled deeply through his nose.
This was interesting! I watched closely. I have never understood why people do not sniff things more. They miss so many wonderful scents.
“You don’t smell like skunk, either,” he said. “Lily! Lily, come!”
Maggie Rose wiggled off of Dad’s lap, and I trotted over to him. Maybe it would be my turn on Dad’s lap now.
But Dad put out a hand to stop me before I could snuggle. He put his nose in my fur. He sniffed. I wagged and sniffed him back. I wondered if I should turn around so he could sniff under my tail.
“No skunk smell at all!” Dad declared.
“Maybe the skunk missed Lily?” Maggie Rose suggested.
“Couldn’t have. She had her nose right in the skunk’s butt, and I saw it lift up its tail and aim right at her. Your dog should have gotten a full blast of skunk right in her face. A skunk’s spray is the only way it can protect itself. They’re not fast, they don’t have big teeth, and they can’t climb trees. All they can do is squirt that awful smell. And it works! Even bigger animals will back right off if a skunk lifts up its tail. So how come Lily doesn’t stink?”
My girl was shivering. “I don’t know.”
“You’re both way too cold to sit around talking about skunks!” Dad decided. “Come on. We’ve got to get you dry.”
We went back to the place where we’d spent the night, and Dad put more wood on the fire. I wagged, remembering the bacon from breakfast. Maggie Rose crawled into the cloth house and came out again with dry clothes on. She carried a towel that she used to rub me all over.
It felt good! I wiggled and jumped. But I was still trembling, and Maggie Rose was, too.
“Sit right by the fire,” Dad said. “Here.” He went into the cloth house, too, and came out with a blanket that he wrapped around my girl.
“But what about Lily?” Maggie Rose asked. “She’s cold, too.”
“She’s got fur. She’ll be okay.”
Maggie Rose thought for a moment. “I know!” She shook off the blanket and climbed into the cloth house. Was this a new people game, crawling in and out of the cloth house? She came back out with a
puffy coat in her hand. She draped the coat over my back. Then she picked up my front legs, one at a time, and stuffed them into the arms of the coat.
I let her do this, because I love her. Then I stood up and shook as hard as I could.
The coat did not fall off. But the hood flopped forward over my eyes. I shook my head hard to make it go away. It only flopped down farther until it hung over my nose.
My girl was giggling. Dad was laughing, too.
None of this could possibly make sense to a dog.
Dad said, “Once you two are all warmed up, there’s something we’ve got to do.”
“What, Dad?” Maggie Rose asked.
“Find that skunk.”
* * *
In a little while, Maggie Rose figured out that I did not want to be in her coat and took it off me. She rubbed her hair hard with the towel and hung it up on a rope stretched between two trees. “Ready!” she told Dad.
“Great,” Dad said. “If that skunk actually can’t spray, it can’t defend itself. And we can’t leave it out here like that. So let’s see if Lily can track it down.”
“Find the skunk, Lily!” Maggie Rose said to me.
I sat down on the ground and looked up at her. What game were we playing now?
Maggie Rose hurried off down the path toward the water. I followed, of course. When she reached the bush where I had met my black-and-white friend, she stopped. She pointed at the thick shrubs.
“Skunk, Lily!” she said. “Find the skunk!”
Clearly, Maggie Rose wanted me to do something. I tried to think what that might be. Some sort of treat would probably help me figure it out. That bacon would be best.
“Find the skunk!”
Skunk. She and Dad had said that word earlier, before Maggie Rose and I had played the strange game in the water. Were we playing another game now?
The way Maggie Rose was saying “find the skunk!” reminded me of being in the backyard, when she would say, “find the ball!” When she said that, I would run around until I found a ball and bring it to her.
Maybe I was supposed to find the skunk!
No, that didn’t seem right. I gazed at my girl’s face.
“Find the skunk! The skunk!” she urged.
I’d never heard “skunk” before, and now it seemed like all anyone wanted to say. I looked around. No skunk. I poked my head into the bush. I couldn’t see any skunk there, either.
But I could smell it. I put my nose down to the ground and sniffed. I pushed through the shrubs and followed the skunk’s trail, right to the mossy log where I had been treated to a good sniff of her butt. When I had left to play in the water with Maggie Rose, the skunk had climbed over the log and wandered off among the trees.
I clambered right over the log and followed her scent trail.
9
Maggie Rose and Dad followed me as I tracked that skunk across the dirt, around trees, and through patches of dry grass. We were all playing Chase-the-Skunk!
I hoped skunks understood Chase-Me better than squirrels did, and that the skunk would not ruin the game by running up a tree or down a hole or into a loud hose.
There were many interesting animal scents distracting me from that skunk, now that I had my nose to the ground. My girl and Dad were having trouble keeping up, so I felt free to check some of them out. Wait, what was this? A male dog had been here recently. I sniffed carefully.
“Lily! Find the skunk!” Maggie Rose said urgently as she came up behind me.
“Did you lose the trail, Lily?” Dad asked.
I heard my name, and I heard “skunk,” which reminded me what we were doing. I plunged off again. I felt a bit like a bad dog for having stopped to sniff the male dog scent, but it was actually his fault, not mine. Male dogs just don’t always understand what is important.
I was getting closer, I could tell—the skunk smell was so strong now that I knew Maggie Rose and Dad could probably smell her as well. Should I wait and let them find the skunk, instead?
I was going to do just that when I scrambled over a thick root and plopped down on the other side. There she was! The skunk!
She was clawing at a rotten log on the ground. She stuck her face into the crumbled bit of wood and snapped up something wiggly between her teeth.
Then she saw me. She lifted her tail high, lowered her head, and shifted her weight from foot to foot. She wanted to play! I should have brought Craig’s socks.
The skunk backed up and spun around to show me her butt. I’d already sniffed it once, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I did it again.
Dad and Maggie Rose were right behind me. I glanced over and saw Dad take something out of Maggie Rose’s backpack—a sort of thin cloth net. He threw it forward. It had a weight at each corner, so it flattened out as it sailed through the air.
The net flopped to the ground over the skunk and me, covering us both.
Today I’d had a coat on me, and now I was wearing a net. This was very strange, and not how I usually played.
Enough light was coming through the thin cloth that I could still see the skunk. She did not seem happy. I could tell that she was startled and afraid and she wanted to run, but the net was trapping us both.
I wagged at the skunk, so she’d know we were friends. She backed away from me a little, but she didn’t have much space to move.
“Stay there,” I heard Dad tell Maggie Rose. Then he came closer. In a moment his big hands pushed through the cloth and scooped that skunk right up—still wrapped tight in the thin net.
I was concerned for my new friend. I wished I knew a way to tell her that, with Dad holding her, she was safe.
The skunk wriggled and bit at the net as Dad carried her to the back of the truck. I followed, my nose up to smell my new friend. Dad lifted the back of the truck and opened the dog crate there. He plopped the skunk inside, pulled away the thin netting, and shut the door.
“Phew!” Dad said. “That went easier than I expected.”
“Can we put Lily in the back, too? She always helps with scared animals,” my girl asked. I wagged at my name.
“Well, sure—we can try it, but if it makes the situation worse, we’ll need to pull your dog right back out.”
Dad lifted me up and set me next to the dog crate. I peered in through the wire mesh door. The skunk was huddled in a corner. I could tell she was in no mood to play. Sometimes it’s like that when I meet new friends.
I flopped down near the crate so that the skunk would see I was no threat. I watched her carefully to see if she understood.
“Look how calm Lily is,” Dad said. He sounded a little surprised. “I think she’s actually helping the skunk stay calm, too.”
“Of course Lily’s helping,” said Maggie Rose. “She’s a rescue dog. It’s what she does.”
“She’s amazing,” Dad said. “Maggie Rose, I’m afraid we have to cut our camping trip short. We’ve got to get this skunk down to your mother. She can tell if the skunk really can’t spray scent. If she can’t, maybe there’s something your mom can do.”
“What if Mom can’t fix it?” my girl wondered.
Dad was silent for a moment. “Then I don’t know if there’s anything to help the skunk, honey.”
“Mom will fix it,” my girl said urgently. “She has to!”
Maggie Rose and Dad became very busy, packing things and moving them and putting them in the back of the truck. Dad picked up the box with the bacon in it, and even though we could all smell it in there, he didn’t offer me any, which I found baffling. After it was all over, Maggie Rose reached over and lifted me away from the skunk.
I whined a little. I could tell the skunk was still afraid, and I did not like to leave a new friend who was frightened and alone.
Maggie Rose carried me around to the back seat of the truck and climbed in with me. Another car ride!
I hoped that my new skunk friend liked car rides as much as I did.
10
The skunk did not like the
car ride. I could smell her back there in the crate, and she smelled like fear.
We drove all the way to Work. I love Work! On most of the days when Maggie Rose says, “I have to go to school now. Bye, Lily!” I go to Work with Mom.
At Work there are lots of other animals—dogs and cats and kittens and puppies. Once a crow came to stay with us. His name is Casey, and he became one of my best friends.
Another friend is an old dog named Brewster, who is probably the best nap-taker I have ever met.
I wondered what games I would play with my new friend the skunk. So far she had only seemed interested in Sniff-My-Butt.
Dad carried the skunk into Work and put the crate down on the floor. Then he and Mom talked while Maggie Rose and I listened carefully to see if any treats were mentioned. Mom put on a pair of heavy gloves and knelt down to open up the skunk’s crate. She reached in and wrapped up the skunk in a piece of thick, tough cloth.
I wondered why both Mom and Dad seemed to think it was a good idea to play a game called Wrap-the-Skunk.
The skunk squirmed and tried to bite. I could smell that she was very frightened. “She’s a young one,” Mom remarked. Maggie Rose and I waited while Mom looked at the skunk very carefully.
“I think you are exactly right,” Mom said to Dad with a sigh. Very gently, she put the skunk back into her crate and pulled away the sheet. “She has no scent glands. As far as I can tell, she was born that way.”
“She can’t spray?” Dad asked.
Mom shook her head. “She’s a stinkless skunk.”
Dad’s shoulders slumped. “That means she has no defenses at all. There’s no way she can survive in the wild.”
Maggie Rose took me near the skunk’s crate. She set me down. “Go on, Lily,” she whispered to me. “Do your job. Make her feel better.”
I put my nose to the crate door. I sniffed. The skunk stayed far back in a corner and did not come to touch noses with me.
This was bad. This skunk was very afraid.
Dad started talking to his phone, and Mom went to a desk to look at some papers. Humans like looking at papers. I do not know why. They don’t smell or taste interesting at all. Maggie Rose went to the back door and opened it, and wonderful scents drifted in on the warm air. My girl raised her face to the sun and closed her eyes and smiled.
Lily to the Rescue: The Not-So-Stinky Skunk Page 3
