Dog vs. Skunk

Over the past week Aimee and I have been completing some early morning runs to beat the heat and get back into running early before we leave for school. And by early I mean waking up at 4:30 in the morning and running by 5:00. So, as you can imagine it is still dark. As we do on most runs, we brought along Marlie. Today we did the standard 5 mile run from our house to the South Creek Trail, around the pond at Nathanial Greene Park and back to the house. We have done this run so many times we could probably do it with our eyes closed and Marlie could probably complete it on his own too (unless the ducks distracted him). Typical morning: streetlights, headlights, stars, moon, chirping birds, and dark shadows over the sidewalk. You know how you can pass by the same thing everyday and never notice something about it until one day you are like, "hey, when did they do that" and someone with you says "like a couple months ago"? Well, today was one of those days.

So there we are running on the trail, about 1.5 miles in when I see a dark spot on the trail. No big deal. Marlie (not on leash at the time) goes to check it out. Dark spot moves, dark spot has white stripe down back, dark spot hisses, dark spot gets into attack position, Marlie continues to investigate. Problem! Dark spot is Skunk! Me (yelling): Marlie! Marlie: "hey buddie want to be friends"? Aimee: Dustin! Me: more yelling. Skunk: appears to aim spraying device at Marlie and moves at him. Marlie: continued investigation. Me: more yelling. Skunk: more aiming. Marlie: finally realized this is not a friend and moves away.

As the skunk runs off into the weeds, I ran down to my dog and begin to smell him. Luckily there is no smell and the skunk is gone. Thank goodness the skunk can aim about as good as Marlie can when he tries to pee on a tree (always misses). We continued on to the turnaround point another mile away and in the process saw 3 more skunks along the trail for a total of 4! Which leads me to wonder if it is mating season or have they always been there and I have never noticed them before? As for Marlie he lives to run another day unaware of the potential tomato juice bath that awaited him upon our return home.