12/15/2023
Christmas, Veterinary style
I told Papa not the throw them scraps off the back porch," a voice whined on the other end of the phone.
It was Mrs. Olgien and the voice reflected her remorse for having to call me on Christmas Eve combined with her anger at Papa for being too lazy to walk out to the chicken yard. I had never met them or been to their house. My first Christmas as a veterinarian might as well have taken me on another adventure.
Cold was an understatement for the effects that a 25 mile per hour north wind had on the rolling canyons of Clarendon, Texas. I was dreading leaving the warmth of the house for such a petty call. It seems that the combination of scraps and warmth under the house had lured a skunk. Somehow this critter had wedged itself between two footers under the house and was very stuck. The family had discovered the culprit before it had emptied its stink bomb. My assignment was to sedate the skunk without releasing the bomb, and then carefully remove him from the premises. I was still new in the community and very much wanted to please these people and perhaps make some new friends.
Drama unfolds
As I arrived at the scene, the reasons for living in extreme rural America came flooding into my thoughts.
I was 20 miles from the closest anywhere and there must have been 10 cars around this house. A combination of family in for Christmas and neighbors had made the home the hot place for Christmas Eve. One of the cars in the yard had the insignia of the Donley County Sheriff's Department, indicating that even the law would be involved.
All of the parking spots close to the house were already taken. This gave me about a hundred yard walk to the house to focus on my mission and be thankful that the house faced north and the skunk was under the back porch.
As I rounded the line of prairie-planted wind break trees, I noticed the lights were on in the living room which was just inside the holiday-light-surrounded glass front door. The "women folk" were gathered in this front room while none of the men were in sight.
"You better get in here, Dr. Bo," the much toned-down voice of Mrs. Olgien greeted me. "The men are in the backyard trying to figure out how to get the varmint."
I was quickly introduced to everyone in the room and then escorted to the back.
Battle lines drawn
About 15 men stood in the backyard sizing me up as I exited the house with Mamma. After a thorough briefing, I scooted under the porch to a 2-foot square opening that led to the sub-structure of the house. Upon peering through, I caught my first glimpse of the skunk's f***y. It was not at all as I had pictured. The skunk was wedged between two boards and was about 7 feet away. There was no way I could get a shot of sedative in one of those buns and then get away before the explosion of stink.
I backed out and we brainstormed. Finally, we decided to tape a syringe to the end of a broom and use a very small needle to deliver the drug. The small needle might just be gentle enough to keep the skunk from spraying, but just in case, I would be a long ways off.
Slipping a micky
I filled the syringe with about twice the dose of sedative that I would have given a cat. I felt like G.I. Joe as I belly-crawled, inch-by-inch, toward the trespasser. Carefully glancing around the protection of the footer, I gently inserted the tiny needle into the left bun of the skunk and slipped him a micky. Not a drop of odor entered the air. What an accomplishment! I scurried out to a hero's welcome. I felt sure I would be on Wild Kingdom after such an adventure-filled mission.
We went back into the house and enjoyed the fruits of our labor, a cup of Mamma's hot chocolate, as we waited for the sedative to go into effect. We visited and laughed for a few minutes and then I started my hero's departure.
I was about to leave when Mamma asked if we had ever actually removed the now-snoring skunk. "No," was my answer, but I assured her that it would just take a second and I would do it before I left.
A sleeping giant
A few of the men went with me as I went back under the house to retrieve the sleeping skunk.
I peered in at the now limp tail of the skunk and quickly closed the 7-foot gap that separated us. The thing was stuck harder than I had figured. I pulled and tugged with little success. By now, 30 minutes had passed since the shot. When the skunk finally came sliding free, our eyes met. It was at this moment that I realized that the drug had worn off.
This critter had been chased by dogs, wedged between boards, injected with a needle and had never released a drop of liquid stink. But the minute our eyes met, he fogged up the world. He got me right on the side of the head. Under the house is no place to "jump back;" if you do you will bump your head and that's exactly what I did.
'Houston, we have a problem'
Only the toughest of the bunch was still in the yard. They knew before I backed out that the mission had taken a serious turn.
I could hear the sheriff saying something about clearing the area and forming a perimeter. My eyes were watering so much that I couldn't see a thing. This was nothing like the smell you get when you pass a dead skunk in the road. The smell stinks, but this smell actually hurts. There were parts of my body other than my nose that were smelling this. It was then that I felt something warm and liquid running down my neck.
Did I mention that I can't stand to see my own blood? That's right. I can do a C-section on a cow while eating a hamburger, but a steady flow of my own blood, and I am going to pass out. Maybe it means I'm a sissy, but I have no control over it. I can take kicks, cuts, contusions just fine, but bleeding takes me down.
The bigger they are
My knuckles were white from the tight grip I had on Mr. Skunk.
I never let go as I backed out from under the porch. Here I stood, surrounded by a ring of people I had never met, holding a skunk on Christmas Eve, about to pass out. Everyone backed off even further as the smell engulfed the area. I heard someone say, "He's bleeding all over the place." The next few scenes happened in slow motion for me; first to my knees and then to my stomach. That was the last thing I remember until I came to in the garage with Mamma rubbing my head with a cold rag.
I stunk. The four men that carried me to the garage stunk, the women who took off my coat and boots stunk and my pickup stunk for two months just from carrying me home.
Lasting impression
They would have been better off if they had never met me. I took two baths in tomato juice but still had to sleep on a towel-covered couch for three days.
I talked to Mrs. Olgien a week or so later and she told me that it still smelled in the house, but that they had gotten used to it. The moral of the story: Don't visit too long on Christmas Eve after shooting a skunk with twice the cat dose of sedative. Merry Christmas, everyone.
