Tails of Topanga #4, Topanga Messenger, October 2, 2004

SKUNKED!
     It has been over a month since Topanga Animal Rescue began working on the 'Lower Topanga Cats' project.  We have trapped twenty cats, had them spayed, neutered and given medical attention.  But the process continues. Many cats still run the coyote corridor between the burned out house and the motel. Our method is to set 'hava heart'  traps baited with canned food. If no cats are found during the day, the procedure is to spring and then reset the trap in the morning.  This prevents a cat from spending a terrifying night with coyotes sniffing around the cage.  It has been working well.
     It was dusk when I arrived for  the last trap check of the day.  I opened the broken down gate to the yard of an abandoned house.  As I squeezed through and under the thick overgrowth of ivy, I spotted the cage on the ground. From a distance of some six feet, I could see a dainty little SKUNK inside!  I was on the phone and about to ask what the safe distance might be when it performed two cute little jumps with its front feet--like a kitten pouncing on a piece of fluff. BAM !! I felt like I had been hit in the face with a shovel!  Keep in mind this all happened in seconds.  Let me add that the nauseating smell that hit me did not smell anything like that strong waft of skunk we have all smelled at one time or another. It was concentrated by a thousand fold! Even though I was wearing glasses my eyes were streaming, my throat burned. My tongue and lymph nodes in my neck swelled to the size of golf balls.         
     I bid a hasty retreat  to the other side of the fence and stripped  to my underwear. Even my favorite new clogs had bit the dust!  I fumbled in the brush for my cell phone which was still connected to two volunteers on the other end. They had heard the live action play by play with the screams, cursing, and calls to the higher being.­  I danced, hopping from one leg to another, walking and jumping up the dirt path to escape the odor now permeating the atmosphere like a sinister fog.  I rounded a corner of bushes and up the trail, towards the back of the Reel Inn where sounds of periodic laughter burst from the outdoor patio. There was another burst of laughter.  I looked up at the restaurant  and back down the trail. Public humiliation was the lesser of the two evils so I stayed put.  My husband arrived with tomato juice from the Topanga Market , five gallons of water and some towels.  I was doused in tomato juice from head to pinkie toes and stood there like Sissy Spacek in the scene from Carrie. But I had forgotten to tell him I needed clothes too!  From his car he mustered up some baby blankets, two large plastic bags, an old jacket and some dog towels. 
     So, while having no friends for two weeks, many tomato juice baths, carbolic soap washes, being doused in vinegar and smelling like an English fish and chip supper,  Topanga Animal Rescue continues cat trapping. Oh, and yes, my husband and Janey Shuman braved the gauntlet of  raised skunk tails and got the baby skunk out of the trap safely.