Bosco And His Bad Decision Making

There’s a reason my blissfully sweet dog, Bosco, earned the nickname Big Dummy. In case my tone is being lost in the translation from whatever screen you’re reading this on, please know that this was a nickname given with love, often accompanied by an indulgent laugh. Some dogs are just doofuses and, well, that was Bosco.

He was my big guy. My German Shepherd. My trio of dogs consisted of a small, a medium, and a large (a whole set!) and he was the one who people found most intimidating. Until they met him.

The thing about Bosco is that he saw it as his mission in life to be a friend to all. He loved people, but what he loved more than anything was making new four-legged friends. Every dog or cat he met found that ignoring him was non-optional. He wanted to be their friend and he would not take no for an answer.

It was adorable and had never caused any major altercations. Until one very memorable night.

Let me paint a picture for you. This is a densely populated area I live in. We do not have wildlife save for the occasional squirrel. I don’t need to check my backyard for unwelcome creatures before letting my dogs outside. So, even though it was nearly midnight, I didn’t think anything of it when I took them out.

My three dogs went their own way to find a patch of yard to pee on. All was quiet. Until my medium sized dog, the only one with any sense as it turned out, booked it back to the porch. That dog moved so fast she was a literal blur.

It was then that I noticed the skunk. Lurking in the furthest, darkest corner of the yard where the porch light didn’t reach, was the biggest ball of angry-looking fluff I had ever seen. Seriously, I had no idea those stinkers (pun intended) were that massive. I thought they were like squirrels, but…no?

So, here’s where we are: medium dog is safely on the porch, large dog Bosco (who was very old and almost completely deaf) was mindlessly sniffing at the other end of the yard completely oblivious, and my small dog, who was less than half the size of the skunk, is mere feet away from it with a look of open curiosity on her face.

And that’s when the skunk started toward her.

Are skunks aggressive? I have no idea! I’d never even seen a skunk before outside of Loony Tunes. So, what did I do when that skunk made to move toward my precious little dog? In the middle of the night, mind you? I screamed bloody murder, of course.

Fortunately, my panic jolted some sense into my dog and she ran back to me. Unfortunately, it got someone else’s attention.

It turned out that I had screamed loud enough that even sweet, deaf Bosco heard it. And when he caught sight of that skunk, it was as if I could read his thoughts. New friend! he seemed to say as his eyes lit up and he started across the yard.

We were headed for disaster. It almost seemed to play out in slow motion. I did some more screaming, trying desperately to get him to course correct, to come to me. But there was a new animal that he needed to be friends with. Nothing was going to get in the way of that.

I think you know where this is going. Bosco was skunked. He only came to me when he realized his offer of friendship had been rejected.

I didn’t know what to do in the event of a skunking. The only thing I could think to do was…bathe him? I guess?

Keep in mind, he was not a small dog. I couldn’t just put him in the bathtub and clean him up. And it was the middle of the night! The best I could manage was a quick rinse.

But here’s what the cartoons never taught me: water makes the smell worse. It was nausea-inducing. And I don’t say that lightly. I’m a lifelong pet owner. I’ve worked for a dog rescue. I’ve cleaned up my fair share of thoroughly disgusting messes. But that skunk smell almost broke me. It was so sickening I knew sleep was highly unlikely.

And what time was it, anyway? At this point it was the early hours of the morning. I was exhausted. My nerves were frayed. And I wanted to hurl.

So there I was, trapped in a house filled with an almost palpable odor of skunk and wet dog when the absurdity of the situation hit me. My dog…was skunked. This was some cartoon level ridiculousness. And it would have only happened to Bosco, the sweet simpleton who only wanted to make a friend.

Okay, I thought. Things would be better in the morning. The smell would surely fade.

But that smell lingers! For weeks, that poor dog reeked of death. Oblivious to his own malignant scent, he of course still wanted lots of pets and would rub against me to get attention. So generous of him to share the skunk stench with his family, right?

It was months before I was no longer catching whiffs of skunk when Bosco walked by. As the smell faded, though, the memory of that dreadful night became a classic Bosco story, one I found more humor in every time I told it.

When he died less than a year later at age 16, my world instantly became a little darker. He was the embodiment of joy. He was a constant reminder to see the good. So many of my friends and relatives had loved Bosco. I needed to post a fitting memorial to my beloved boy. I had to share the news that he was gone in a way that did service to who he was, but what could I say?

I had hundreds of photos (he’s smiling in almost every one), but it felt nearly impossible to capture his spirit in words. In the end, it seemed only fitting to emphasize how much he loved making friends. I chose photos of him with my other dogs, with other people’s dogs, with animals he had loved who had passed before him. And I wrote about how he could lift the spirits of anyone who encountered him. How he never passed up an opportunity to make a new friend. How on one memorable occasion, the Big Dummy even tried to befriend a skunk.