Question How to get a puff of dust animation (not particle) to play upon enemy damage

I've searched around but haven't been able to find a tutorial for this. Tried a few things, but I can't get it to work.

All I want is, when you hit the enemy with a weapon, a puff of smoke/dust pops out of him.

I don't want to use particles for this.

I have the sprite sheet for the animation. Do I create a game object, set up an animation clip for the dust explosion and then attach that object to the enemy, and use a script to trigger the puff to play when the enemy gets hit?

Or would I some how add this puff animation clip as a property of the enemy's own damage animation (ex. get's hit, and staggers backward or something, and the puff plays simultaneously)

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks