Ear plugs work!!

Leigh is off on an adventure, with his brother Randy, so it is just me and the dogs and the cat . . . . and the neighbors (The Montoya Family). I went to bed late last night. I didn't lock the dogs into the house but allowed them the option of going out into the dogrun; this required ear plugs for me because the banging of the doggie door is distracting, annoying, irritating, etc. Sometime in the night I became aware of an odor. .which I didn't identify right away. I don't know when it became clear what the smell was but when it finally registered (SKUNK!!) I was perplexed how the skunk would have gotten into the dog run. As morning approached and my earplugs worked their way out of my ears, I became aware of the dogs barking. Rather than get up I just yelled at them to be quiet, which seemed to work. Long story short: The dogs' dogrun gate had been left open and Ginger and Pepper had been roaming; they had been sprayed, and by 12:30 A.M.they were barking and barking at the neighbor's house. :( Becky had to move to the back bedroom to get some relief from the dogs. Thomas suffered in silence murmuring threats against Pepper specifically. When I woke up at 8:30, I called Becky and left a message for them NOT to get too close to the dogs as they seemed to have gotten sprayed by a skunk. Then I noticed that I had 12 missed calls with the bulk of them from . . . . . the Montoyas, beginning at 12:40, 1:00, 2:05, etc. Becky didn't get my message but about 9:00 she and Thomas came down to the patio and cautiously stepped into the house. . . .thinking that something must have been terribly wrong at our house since I hadn't answered the phone and the dogs had been so persistent. Crazy night for them but a testimony to me that those 200 pair of red earplugs that I bought all those years ago wasn't such a silly purchase after all; they still work.
Sorry Montoyas.