SKUNK!

Ollie and Pepper have finally given up on a backyard romp and flopped down on the floor of the master bedroom. They've been penned up in there all day, poor things, but it's for their safety since we have workers in the house and a rabid mammal on the loose.

This morning, my mother called to say she had spied a skunk out her kitchen window in the guesthouse that faces our property line's back fence. It was turning in tight circles, staggering and falling on occasion. It worked its way from the back of the lot to near the cabana over the course of about 10-12 minutes with this same behavior. If it wasn't rabid, then it was obviously very ill. My vote is rabies. I raced to get my mobile phone and call our city's dispatch so we could have either the police or animal control come take a look. Giving it wide berth due to its erratic behavior, plus the fact that it's armed and loaded with the stink spray, it climbed through the fence and into the neighbor's wood pile behind a screen of bamboo so I couldn't track it very well.

About ten minutes later, the police arrived. With a six foot pole that had a looped noose rope on the end. Seriously. I was curious to see how the hell that was gonna work if they found it, from a safe distance, of course. So we scoured our yard and the neighbors for the danged skunk and couldn't locate it. 

Just to be on the safe side, I texted a couple other neighbors who have outside dogs to give them a heads up. The poor skunk seemed so ill and out of it that I hope it was near the end and it has now holed up somewhere to die. The last thing we need is for our fat, sassy and large squirrel population to get rabies because the dogs are always chasing after them in the yard.

I found this video on You Tube and it was the same behavior I witnessed this morning, only more pronounced and with a lot of staggering. 

I'll admit it, this was pretty much my reaction... S-K-U-N-K!