Let the dog out this morning before light and he comes back in smelling like a skunk had missed hitting him directly, and the yard smelled the same way. Long Story Short I've finally captured the skunk in a metal trash can and the wife is screaming about disinfecting the WHOLE 1/2+ acre back yard since we think Ol' PepeLePew just might be in the 1st stages of rabies, from the wobbly gait, lack of fear of my 18 month old Lab and me, and out in bright sunshine - all the things I was taught that are the key to ID'ing a rabid Skunk the lst time this happened in Carrollton in '82...when the POPO's wanted to put me in jail for an unlawful discharge when they finally showed up over an hour later after 6 911 calls and I killed the obviouly rabid skunk with my Other Favorite Bedpartner, a M60 Smith and Norma+P 110gr'ers in between 2 brick houses only 16 feet apart to keep the Skunk away from all the school kiddies walking to the corner school bus stop 6 house's away....'cause the shot sounded like bomb blast an got LOTS of 911 calls streaming in. For Sure Woke 'em UP all over North Carrollton!! FWIW 2 weeks later another Skunk went visitin at the local Jr High and the Janitors held the lil gu peened up with push brooms agains a wall beside the front door while over 600 students entered the school and locked the dorr behind them as if poor ol Pepe was gonna open the door all bye himself. Gotta Luv Carrollton...

SO the REAL ?? is ...do I need to spray the yard or the metal trash can I finally captured my unwanted gues in after beating him almost senselss with leftover brick trash, with some sort of disinfectant??? I'm not so sure this guy is rabid, and I watched the Carrollton animal Control guys pour couple ounces of gas over their shovel blades and burn it off to disinfect their equipment from the very bloody debris & dirt leftover around the dead critter. Me and the dog both stink too from the windblown skunk smell but neither of us took a direct hit from up close...and a BATH is soon to follow this message.

The Palestine POPO's had come out from the 1st 911 call in about 30+ minutes, took one look and YES confirmed it was a live SKUNK that was hiding in my carports pile of leftover building material and similar boating stuff...and called in a SitRep that got a response from Dispatch that went.."the Animal Contol guy has gone to church and should be out there around noon or when he can" and is now almost 2 hours past due from the 2nd 911 call the BH made at 11:30.OBTW the POPO's also gently reminded me it was against the law to discharge a firearm in the City Limits and they would probably put me in jail IF I Offed the Skunk in my yard, rabid or not.
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What to do what to do what to do besides dump the still live skunk in the POPO's trash can and leave him alive for them to deal with...best not I'd guess since they'd know where he came from.
Ron

What a mess! They spray around my house all the time, I'm afraid to go out and shoot one. Don't want to spend the night in bars motel.

Put a rope around his neck and take it to the guy that called you in.

Trash cans are cheap....toss and start over......

Take said skunk and trash can to the local popo office and drop it off.....tell them they can shoot it.....

Just talked to the AC guy and he sez they are going to send this guy to Austin for a lab check. He'll spray my trash can with a disinfectant and return it in a day or two. Meanwhile I'll take the dog in to the Vet manana for a booster shot and Life goes back to BORING ...and boring is GOOD.

The more I think about it I'm not totally sure the skunk was/is rabid, after watching him for couple hours at under 50 feet. Tough little guy too as I beat the poohwah out of him with 20+ 1/2 bricks left over from a neighbors trim job..and he crawled out of the pile I'd left him in and was back to seeking cover and food when I trapped him under the trash can. Wrong House bubba.
Ron

Best advice I can give is....move out to the country where it is still ok to shoot stuff!

We're not supposed to fire so much as a slingshot in my neighborhood. Still, there's an unwritten code among us that this doesn't apply to skunks and porcupines. And we've come close to organizing a neighborhood "beat" for coyotes. A scoped .22 is always ready at my house.

CCI Quiets and a single shot .22 rifle. The neighbors do not need to know.

22 caliber pellet gun

Slingbow with about 25 inch fishing arrows, use a fishing reel type set up with 50 pound test line. Quiet and the line will help to recover the arrow.

I use a 8 foot piece of 1/2 inch fibreglass rod to dispatch the offending beasts. Herd them to where you want them dispatched, hit them to slow their speed, then give them a few good whacks in the head to ensure they are indeed "dispatched". Usually this activity is after 10:00pm and before 6:00am while most neighbors sleep unaware of what is going on.

I have used pellet guns(multiple styles), 22 with low velocity and normal velocity. Nothing matches the effectiveness of the stick.

I leave them for the buzzards unless on my street, then they go into the garbage like everything else. I have 158 confirmed kills and only seen 6 or 7 that looked really sickly. Those sickly ones do not run fast and make for easy "Dispatching".

Hint: Never involve Police, PETA or any agency in this kind of thing. You will open a can of worms you don't want opened.

Don't worry about the yard. After a few days/weeks the smell will go away.

Get an Airforce Condor SS .25 cal or Benjamin Marauder .25 Cal and SSS. Shoot, Shovel and Shutup.

With the influx of city folks coming to the country I would practice the three Ss Shoot, Shovel, and Shutup. That is if I was to do such a thang.

A suppressed 22 is your huckleberry

If I was still at Lake Texoma, I'd already done the 3 S's in my own yard, using a post hole digger and quart of gasoline to erase all traces of the critter, killing any possible infectious diseases too...but I live next to some very influential people here in Dogwood City that would have a problem with that...oh well I wanted to get away from the Lake People who treated the COE property in front of my house like a trash heap for most of the 11 years I lived there, never understanding what the term Homesteaded Private Property meant ... and living back in civilization is what it is....with NO regrets.
Ron

Its a shame that the firearm laws are what they are, but I get it. About 30 years ago in Plano, my son and I were coming home one winters afternoon, there was a cat on the back porch. I went inside to call animal control in my 5-year-old son went out to see the cat unbeknownst to me, who proceeded to bite him. Now I was upset and mad at the same time. I called animal control and they agreed that the cat need to be captured, because a similar cat (which turned out to be this cat) had bitten an animal control officer the previous week. I asked them what they needed for a rabies test, and they said the head.
I one on a hunting expedition for the cat, and eventually caught him on the roof of my neighbors house. I had high brass #4's in my shotgun and my neighbor wanted me to shoot it in the valley of the roof, which I declined, but the moment it's silhouetted itself on the eve of the house, I blew it into the front yard. I had told the neighbors that there was going to be "some noise", and no one called the cops - much to my surprise.
I called animal control, and told him I had their cat, and they could come get it. The AC lady asked me if it was dead, and I said, "what do you think?"
Thankfully it was not rabid.
I couldn't do that anymore in Plano that's for sure!