Spunky the Skunk

I wrote a story about the last one and posted it a couple years ago.

I never had it decented and it had the run of the house, when my wife would put up with it.

I had a cage outside where I kept him. I would open it up, when I was working in the garden and he would follow me around like a pet coon. He would eat all the bugs and grubs he could get his little paws on.

We would walk in the woods and he would follow. I would be doing whatever and he would follow, looking under rotten logs and such. It would sorta sicken me when the little guy would catch a salamander. He would just set there and eat it alive. The head always went first so it was fast :shock

My brother came over one day when I was not home. I worked second shift at the time. He had a brand new van that he was showing off. He had brought his doberman along.

Gary was getting ready to leave and the dog was running around the yard. Gary was standing there talking to my wife and called the dog. The dog saw the skunks cage. :lol

He ran up and did what all stupid dog do. It started barking at the skunk. Well the skunk did what skunks do when dogs startle them. He sprayed that doberman in the mouth! Now I have never tasted skunk spray but from the dogs reaction, it tastes rather bad.

That dog started foaming at the mouth and howling. It was bellering when it dove into my brothers brand new van too :shock :shock slobbering foamy skunk piss all over the thing.

I guess Gary was a yelling at the dog but the dog was not paying attention to much other than the skunk piss :shock :shock and who could blame it?

He got the dog out and my wife, who was a canner, got some canned tomato's out and they rubbed it into the dogs fur. I was not there but they said it did a good job of getting the smell out. The van took a while longer to get back to normal, I expect.

Skunks go into a feeding frenzy in the fall. They hibernate and they lay on all the fat they can. I was wanting to turn it loose so it could go wild but had not as of yet.

It got to be a pain feeding him. I would make up a big bowl of dogfood, cover it with bacon grease and mix in a vitamin pill. It got so he would attack the stuff.

the cage was actually big enough to get into and the door was a normal hinged frame, covered with chain link fence, which is what the cage was made of.

It had a hasp with a screw driver stuck in it to hold it closed.

I would squat down with the bowl of food in my left hand. I would then reach up with the right and pull the screwdriver out. Holding the screwdriver I would then pull the door open and put the food in front of the door, on the cage floor.

The little bastard started going nuts for the food and dang near attacked it :shock He had never bitten me but by god, I was afraid he was gonna, the way he was acting. I would yell at him and the little turd would swing his butt around at me in a threatening manner. That sucked. He had never sprayed me but nailed a neighbor kid once when he poked a stick in the cage.

One time I was feeding him and lost my presence of mind. I set the food in, holding the screwdriver in my right hand and he, as normal dove at the food. It pissed me off and like I said,I had a brain fart. I looked at him, cussed him and holding the screwdriver by the blade, rapped him sorta hard between the eyes.

Now I came to my senses rather fast. He was pissed but a bit addled by the rap on the head. He swung his arse around and seeing this I reacted instinctively. I yelled, "Oh, SHIT" and while I was doing so, I rolled backwards and to the left. I rolled and kept rolling.

It was a dam good thing too as he unloaded at me. Man did that stuff stink but as luck would have it, the wind was going away from me.

My neighbor, two doors down wind, who's kid had been nailed, laughed and yelled, "Did he get you!" I yelled, which I feel disappointed the dam fool.

I looked toward the cage, half expecting the little bastard to be coming after me but he wasn't. He was calmly eating his food.

I had to close the door now but was a bit leery to attempt it. I started talking to him but he was gluttonously eating the food. He kept watching me as he ate. As I neared the cage he, still eating, swung his arse at me but luckly it was just a threat. A threat that I took seriously, I might add.

I reached over and slowly swung the door shut and he continued his eating.

I would love to say now that I never did a stupid thing like that again but I must not lie. About a week later, in identical manner, I clobbered the thing again. Same thing happened. And I got away with it again.

I have a bit of a temper and it got the best of me. From then on,the first thing I would do, after pulling the screwdriver was to stick it in the dang ground, out of reach. This worked fine.

That little bugger liked to screw with me. I got it from a neighbor that knew I was an animal nut. I have had pet skunks, possum, rabbit, coon, crow, muskrat, mole (now there is a stupid pet to have) I have had snakes-Gardner, blue racers, hog nose, eastern water snakes, Masauga rattlers and more. I even had a sparrow hawk that I raised up and released. I just liked animals.

Anyway, she called me up and said she had something for me. It was in a big cardboard box. They had seen it along the road and the mother had been hit by a car. A dog was after the little guy so they rescued it.

It was about the size of your fist and scared to death,huddled down in the corner. I picked up the box and all and carried it home, which was about 10 houses away.

When I got him home he just hid in the corner of the box. I was not about to reach down and pick him up as they are armed from birth. I just sat there and talked to him.

Eventually he started settling down. It did not take long, maybe a half hour or so. He finally looked up and started moving around. I reached down and just held my hand there, about a foot from him. I sat there and talked to him. He finally came over and sniffed my hand and seemed to except it, At least I hoped he excepted it because I was getting tired of being nice to the little sucker :O)

I picked him up and he was fine.

I then build a cage for him. He was kept in the cage most of the time but I tried to let him out as much as I could. I told about taking him in the woods and such and that was to let him learn how to forage for himself. He was fine. I knew I would turn him loose in the fall.

Many times I would go out and call to him. He knew I was gonna let him out and he would start a dancing at the door and make skunk noises. I would pull the door open and he would hope out and start dancing around. I would say, "Lets go to the garden" and off he would go. Trouble was he would sometimes run around my dang feet and I was afraid I would step on him.

He would run ahead of me and then stop and face me. Then he would dance and squall and swing his ass at me, as if to squirt me! The little sucker liked to see me jump, I think. then he would take off a chattering, only to do it again. He loved to play like that but never sprayed me or anyone else that didn't have it coming.

Late in the fall,when he was getting fat and sassy, I was thinking about taking him out and dumping him somewhere. It had to be done and I had to find a place that was remote.

He was really fat on the diet I had him on. He was now full grown an as fat and sleek a skunk I have ever seen. One evening I had him down to the garden and it was time to go in the house. I reached down to pick him up and he reached under and bit me. Now he had never bitten me before. Not once. A dang skunk bites different than many animals. They bite and hang on, grinding their teeth into the flesh. My flesh as it turned out!

I yelled and jerked my hand back, tearing the hell out of my finger in the process. I threw him on the ground and cussed him. I went stomping up to the house and went in to tend to my hand. My wife asked me what had happened and I told her.

I bandaged my hand up and she asked me if the skunk was in its cage and I told her no and it was not gonna be.

I figured it was his way to tell me it was time to go and I never saw him again. We lived in the country and that was good enough for him I guess. I didn't go back to the garden until morning and he was gone.

I hope he did well