How Welding Can Cause Horrible Dog Breath

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend of mine when, out of the blue, I got in trouble. I'm not even sure how it came about because it happened suddenly. Now, I'm not going to try to remember the conversation word-for-word, but the gist of it was something like, "You said on your blog that you were back. I've been checking for new posts...WHERE ARE YOU?" The truth of the matter is, I'm here but I've just been lazy when it comes to posting. How is that for honesty?

I can't say that I have a boring life. Actually, it's quite the opposite. Living on almost 150 acres means that something is pretty much always going on. For instance, I just finished building an awning for my parents. Not having welded for almost 20 years, I was a little nervous about tackling something like that. The last time I welded, I used a traditional stick welder. Those are the ones that use welding rods in order to create the weld. This time, I had a new wire welder that uses a roll of thin wire that is fed through the handle and eliminates the need for rods. I've never used one before and I hoped against hope that I would be able to catch on quickly so I could do a job that would look good and hold together. Not only was this going on their house, I also knew my Dad was going to have to climb on top of it in order to put the roof on it. I had made gates for our cattle lot in the past, and they had held up to some pretty severe torture. One time, a bull decided he didn't want to stay penned and chose to go up and over one of my gates. The metal bent, but the welds held firm. Of course, the consequences of a bull breaking a gate is not the same as your own Dad falling 8 feet. How awful it would be if he got up there and the welds weren't right! Thankfully, I was able to pick it back up quickly, the welds held firm, and my parents now have an awning over their back door. So, where does the horrible dog breath fit into all of this?

Well, we were finished with the frame of the awning and we decided we needed to get it up before it rained, so we hooked up the flood lights and kept working after dark. My parents have a huge boxer named "Big Mack" and he was really enjoying the fact that he had company. He was running all around us, stopping occasionally to have his head scratched.


My Dad had to go find a tool, so we stopped to take a break. I sat down and rubbed Big Mack's enormous melon head for a couple of minutes, then he got up and took off to the darker part of the yard. I was talking to my Mom when Big Mack came trotting back up. I noticed he was wheezing terribly and he was drooling like someone had filled his jowls with whipped cream. Then, he started shaking his head and acting weird and I got really concerned. I was reaching out to try to calm him down, but just before I touched him...it hit me. It wasn't a revelation or a sudden flash of inspiration. It was a FUNK! Skunk funk!

I pushed him away before he could contaminate me. It's funny how fast our feelings of sympathy can turn to feelings of self-preservation, but I've never experienced that kind of stink before. Mind you, I smell skunks all the time because we live out in the country and they are everywhere. I've even killed them before and have had to carry them away, but I have never smelled their "perfume" as strong as I did on Big Mack. It burned my nose and throat! I couldn't even imagine what Mack was going through, but I knew I didn't want that nasty smell on me! I grabbed a light and the shotgun and caught up with my Dad who was already looking for the skunk. He saw it but it ran off before I could get there with the gun. Dad managed to get it the next night, and it was huge! Poor Mack! Our thinking was that Mack went to bite the skunk and took a shot of musk right in the mouth, because that was the only part of him that stunk.

That's how welding and really bad dog breath fit together. The awning is still standing and so is Big Mack. The skunk is gone and the bad breath has too. All-in-all, life is good and I'm looking forward to my next welding project, but if we work at night, Big Mack is going inside!