These cheeky skunks are turning heads during outdoor walks in Huddersfield.
Sessie and Fudge are striped skunks native to North America but are right at home in Golcar where they live with Lizzie Jacobs-Gray and husband Eddi Jacobs.
Lizzie says skunks make great pets - despite the smell which some have compared to a whiff of cannabis.
She says Sessie and Fudge only rarely release their pungent musk.
“Once they are used to humans they mellow,” she says.
“I frightened one of them by accident and he ‘shot’ at me. It certainly smells. It was like burnt rubber and hair.”
But natural day-to-day odour is comparable to cannabis, she added.
Lizzie says they are fairly easy to look after despite reports to the contrary.
“The clean themselves and they will eat food using their hands which is really cute. They will eat fruit and veg, chicken, eggs and bugs. Ours don’t hibernate but they do sleep a lot.”
Owners can even teach skunks a trick or two.
“Sessie will stand on his back legs and ‘beg’. They live around the house and are a bit like house cats. We take them out when we can because they enjoy human contact. We take them for walks in a playing field in Golcar.
“They have been known to steal bits of our clothing to sleep with. We once found 10 socks which they had taken. They will pinch socks to make a nest.”
The couple, who live in Swallow Lane, are hoping that Fudge will one day have a litter of little skunks, which are known as kits.
Lizzie said: “We are hoping she will give birth to a few. There can be 10 in a litter and they can live between 12 and 20 years.
“If we have 10 we will sell them. A skunk can cost around £500.”
* Do you have a strange or unusual pet? Email: andrew.robinson@trinitymirror.com
