Carol’s Column

She’s just a talking skunk

WE OWN the only talking skunk in Africa.

Striped and smelly, she came into our lives three weeks ago.

Candy, our minute, cottonwool dog, caught a virus and died.

We were heartbroken, for when a little dog has been part of your family for eight years, she is the family.

Henry and Liquorice, our other hounds, moped around with long muzzles. And Nicky, my little girl, who always regarded Candy as her own dog, was desolate.

So I looked in the paper for a replacement. Anything small, fluffy and cuddly.

My family was horrified.

“Ma, you can't buy a dog ... you've got to go to the SPCA and rescue one,” they shouted in unison.

Last time I visited the SPCA, I came home with four cats and Liquorice.

Jamie had the last word: “Find a little dog that nobody else wants,” he said.

So I did.

Past row upon row of beseeching eyes, I walked with the kennel-maid, until we came to an empty cage.

And then, from behind the water bowl, I saw an ear flicker.

“What's that?” I asked.

“Ah, good question. We think it may be a longhaired Chihuahua. On the other hand ...”

I called it — and a small, striped creature crept towards me, tail between its legs.

Forlorn and miserable, it was pathetic with straggly, scraggly fur sprouting in all directions and huge eyes — it looked like a frog with hair. Or a skunk. It was hideous.

“This is her last day,” said the kennel-maid, “no-one wants her.”

Which is how I came to be driving home with this minute morsel of misery.

Henry and Liquorice, well-adjusted, secure dogs, welcomed her enthusiastically by trying to eat her. So she hid under the Kombi and refused to come out.

Have you ever tried to catch a determined dog? It is not easy.

By the time the kids arrived home from school, she was bathed, brushed and beautiful, in her own ugly way.

They were thrilled. “She looks like a skunk,” said Jamie. And so she was duly christened Skunk.

On day two, while eating breakfast, we heard a most terrible noise coming from the kitchen. A screaming, wailing, yelping noise, it sounded as if Skunk was in agony.

We shot into the kitchen to discover Skunk next to the fridge, her ears waving expectantly, her tail wagging.

On seeing us, the noise increased.

“She's hungry,” said Jamie, an acute observer of life. “Skunk wants something to drink. She talks.”

“Good heavens, does she talk! Like my mother-in-law, she's never, ever quiet.”

“My, only the other day I found Skunk on my spouse's pillow when I hopped into bed.

A reasonable man usually, he was not happy. “Either the dog goes or I go! This bed is not big enough for three of us.”

When I tried to persuade her to move, she wailed as if her little heart would break.

It will suffice to say that Skunk is still resident in the bed and my husband has moved to the spare room. And although Skunk begins talking at 6am, she does not snore.

She is vociferous about everything, and she is a dog of discernment. She howls at SABS-TV but loves listening to violin concertos. She has spurned her dog food and only eats chicken. She has hogged the only comfortable armchair and she likes to play the piano by walking up and down the keys.

“Great,” said my second son, “great, now we own a piano-playing talking skunk.”

There have been one or two minor problems. Like most tiny things, she's fearless and fierce. She has, in close succession, verbally attacked the postman, the milkman and water metre reader. Although she's half the size of a soccer ball, they refuse to enter our property.

I know the SPCA is always concerned about the quality of homes their various offspring find. Well, I'd like to reassure them. Skunk is happy.

In fact, it's not an exaggeration to say she's taken over.

Why, only yesterday I found her trying on my Gucci shoes.

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