A few days ago when it was gloriously warm and sunny I let the dog out-I don't know where in the world she went but she came back smelling like a campfire-she must have rolled in some ashes somewhere. I didn't have time to bathe her. The next day I put her on the lead, in the sunshine hoping she would "air out" She didn't. Yesterday, I let her go because I couldn't stand the smell of her anymore. She came back soaking wet absulutly reeking of pond scum. This time in the bath tub she went.

My daughter and I soaped her up with Dawn dish soap-uasually I use shampoo but this dog needed something strong! Anyway, she smelled better but.... It was difficult to get all the soap out completely with her long hair so I diluted some vinigar and rinsed her with that with that. The combination of smoke and vinegar made her smell like a sweet/sour barbecue dog. Blah. Anyway, this morning she smelled great! (for a dog) No trace of smoke or pond scum.

Unfortunantly, the house, particularly the frount hall where she sleeps still smelled smoky and a little fishy. We turned the heat off but the fans on, and I put little dishes of vinagar in the frount hall and the living room. By noon, the house smelled ok again, and after cooking pot roast, it smelled pretty darn good. I beleive I will just skip the Febreeze that I was wondering about and stick with good old vinagar!

Last week when it was warm and windy, I just opened up all the windows and pulled the furnature out from the walls to let the air get around-that took care of a lot of stale winter odors.

-- Kelly (homearts2002@yahoo.com), March 16, 2002

Answers

Hi Kelly, Baking soda works great, too. Won't it be nice to keep the windows open soon. We installed a whole house fan last year and nothing beats that for airing out the house!

-- Chris in KY (christi@bardstowncable.net), March 17, 2002.