Open eyes on a hike saved noses

The barking didn’t stop.

Instead, it got wilder and louder.

And in between barks, we heard our niece calling the dog by name.

“Bolt!” she shouted. “Bolt!”

It’s an appropriate name for the yappy little dog my wife’s sister and our niece dearly love. He tends to run off at the slightest opportunity.

As for us, Bolt isn’t an object of affection. He’s something we put up with, like an eccentric roommate. Except yappier.

But we could tell by the tone of our niece’s voice that something was seriously wrong.

We were spending some time a few weeks back in New Hampshire at the cabin my wife’s family first built more than 100 years ago, and we were sharing the place with niece, sister-in-law and Bolt at the time.

The dog had been out in the woods, something that’s not particularly smart for a Long Island-bred house dog to be doing. There are bears in the woods, and porcupine.

And — the dreaded word was shouted by our niece — “Skunk!”

The minutes that followed are simply a blur in my memory. The smell was unforgettable, however.

Somehow, Bolt was wrangled into the back of the cabin where there’s a sort of slop sink in a utility room.

Our niece had managed to drag the stinking dog away from a baby skunk it had harassed. Connie’s sister was now trying to rescue us all from the odor.

Water was flowing over the dog in the sink. Various soaps and shampoos were tried.

“Would Lava help?” asked my niece.

Only if you want to clean Bolt’s fingernails, I answered.

While her mother bathed the dog and scrubbed and lathered, our niece logged onto the internet for advice.

The first thing she found was a list of what not to do if your dog encounters a skunk.

And she immediately learned that they were busily doing everything on that list. But they kept working at it.

Old folk remedies were looked up, found to be useless and abandoned.

Eventually, the skunk’s odor was diminished or at least masked enough to make it tolerable. Then again, maybe our senses were so overcome that we simply couldn’t smell the worst of it anymore.

There was, of course, no indication that the dog had learned its lesson. Bolt is not the smartest pup in the pound.

But the rest of us were more wary. Skunks had never been seen on the hill, but now all of us were on the lookout.

That made a difference just a few days later.

Connie and I were making our way back up the hill from the lake on the way to the cabin with our two grandsons. We were taking a wooded path that is named in honor of Connie’s mother.

And we were just about to the top when Gabriel, who is four and a half, announced, “Black and white!” and pointed into the brush.

We quickly backtracked halfway down the hill then took another route, avoiding — this time — our own skunk attack.

Thanks, Gabe.