How to free a skunk from a glass jar in 3 easy steps

Early Wednesday morning, after hearing the sound of glass scraping on concrete, Renate Reabel of London, Ont., discovered a young skunk wandering outside her home with a glass jar stuck on its head.

Reabel launched into action, not wasting any time in her efforts to free the notoriously stinky, black-and-white mammal.

Here's how she did it in three easy steps:

Reabel was worried when she first set eyes on the trapped skunk. "It was one of those really heavy glass jars. And he was having a hard time keeping his head up," said Reabel.

"I'm thinking to myself, 'I'm going to be worried about this now, all day. How am I supposed to work under these circumstances?'"

She couldn't, of course, so she got to work. First, she chased the skunk around the yard in her fluffy slippers, and then hatched a plan to grab the poor creature.

"He didn't spray," said Reabel who figured if he hadn't sprayed her by now, he likely had already recently sprayed. "He was really stinky, so I was pretty safe."

Because Reabel has a pool in her backyard, she also has a long pool leaf skimmer, which is what she used to scoop up the skunk.

By then, Reabel was yelling for her husband who was still in the house, in the bedroom. Hearing her cries for help, he bolted outside and grabbed the leaf skimmer, so Reabel could remove the skunk (with her bare hands) from the net.

Now, to remove the jar.

"It was stuck," said Reabel who worried her efforts to free the skunk might further injure it. "I think he must have been swollen because I couldn't get it off. I tried everything. I sprayed some oil on him. That didn't work.

"I knew he was getting stressed out because he was starting to go into a little ball."

That's when the couple got the hammer. They gingerly broke the glass, while protecting the skunk's neck with a towel, and before he ran off, they snapped one last photo.

This isn't Reabel's first skunk rodeo.

"I almost gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a skunk about six years ago," she laughed. A skunk had fallen into her pool.

"I grab the fluffiest towels that I could find. I gave him a massage and then I sort of sat with him on my front porch for about an hour, literally rocking a skunk," she recalled.

"I got some hot water bottles and brought berries with honey," she said. When the skunk had finished its snack and had regained its strength, it emerged from the towels looking "gorgeous," said Reabel.

Host, London Morning

Rebecca Zandbergen is from Ottawa and has worked for CBC Radio across the country for more than 20 years, including stops in Iqaluit, Halifax, Windsor and Kelowna. Contact Rebecca at [email protected] or follow @rebeccazandberg on Twitter.