No, Chester hasn’t been smoking pot, he’s just high on life in general…

Last Saturday, our excessively affable and energetic Golden Doodle, Chester, encountered a skunk in our back yard.  Although Chester was apparently interested in making a friend, the skunk would have none of it.  Luckily ,Chester didn’t get a full frontal blast on his face — just a glancing blow on his side. 

I had just gone to bed when I smelled an overpowering skunk odor, then spotted Chester quickly trotting around the yard. We hauled him inside to prevent any further encounters with our visiting Pepe le Pew.  Margo quickly found an online remedy for diffusing skunk odor, consisting of baking soda, dish soap and hydrogen peroxide. We had to literally drag Chester into the bathtub where we doused him with the concoction and gave him a good bath. We made him sleep overnight in his kennel so he could dry off without spreading his “perfume” elsewhere in the house.

The next morning, although he was still not happy with me for his forced bath, the odor was much more tolerable.

We had previously scheduled one of his grooming sessions for yesterday and figured that his hair trim and a bath would further reduce the smell.

When I picked him up at the groomer, I was told that they had used a specific shampoo that was good for reducing or eliminating skunk odor. I bought the remaining bit of shampoo that they had used in case we had another encounter in the future. But as I drove home with Chester munching on a treat in the back seat of the truck, I began noticing an odor that I remembered but could not place. 

When I got home with Chester, Margo noticed the odor and also said it was something vaguely familiar. We looked at the shampoo bottle and there was our clue  — it was made with patchouli oil. 

Now for you Boomers who were around in the 60s and 70s, the scent of patchouli oil was probably familiar if you happened to be around people who smoked a lot of pot. It was used to cover up the smell of burning cannabis. When you walked into someone’s house or apartment and were overcome by patchouli oil smell or passed someone on a street who reeked of it, you could be pretty certain marijuana had been smoked nearby. Of course, I’m pretty sure that cops at this time were not fooled by this trickery.

So now, it smells like Chester has been experimenting with pot. 

Our son wondered if Chester had started to listen to tunes by the Grateful Dead. Our daughter said her kids wanted to know what Chester smelled like. (I guess we could douse a handkerchief with the shampoo and send it to them, but the Post Office might turn us in as suspected drug dealers.)

Of course, our concern now is that if someone comes into our home or passes us while we walk Chester, they might suspect we have been toking up. 

Hopefully those we encounter with aging Boomer brains will vaguely remember that odor but won’t connect the dots. I hope so. In the meantime, I’m going to fire up some Jimi Hendrix on my I-phone with Chester nearby.  And no, I won’t be smoking pot.