Wordless Wednesday (shoe fetish exposed!)

Goodbye Kai and other departures

First I want to say how sad we were to hear that Kai from Zoo crew has crossed over the bridge today. Very sad sad sad. He turned 8 back in February which seems so young. He was an awesome guy with such an expressive face that I just fell in love with through his blog. Aside from being a big black dog (what could be better?) he has a bumpkin that reminds me of my moose's! If you are not a follower of their blog, read this post to get a glimpse of what an awesome guy he was. http://zoocrewdanes.blogspot.com/2008/11/my-sweet-old-man.html.

As for us, I am getting ready to leave for a trip and Moose will be headed to Miami to stay with his girlfriends Swissie & Jetta. When I pack Moose's stuff I start by putting each meal in an individual bag. Moose of course watches this process closely and even tries to grab a bite as the scoop is coming out of the bin!

I know it seems like a bit much, but Moose gets lots of supplements and it is less trouble for the dogsitter if they are already dolled out in each meal. For those of you who have dogs that spit out even the best hidden pill, would you believe that moose will just eat them right along with his kibble? These are not special chewable dog pills or anything, this is Glucosamine and other human supplements. I guess it is a lab thing since they will eat anything you give them. It definitely makes life easier, that is for sure.

Anyway, all of that along with kong and oinkies gets packed in his overnight bag with a stuffy (likely never to be seen again!).
Phew! Guess it is time to pack my own stuff... I will be gone for 8 days and will miss my boy terribly. He misses me for as long as it takes my car to back out of the driveway then he goes on about his day with his girl friends and their fun yard as though this is his new home. I guess I could be insulted but it is nice to not worry that he is stressed or unhappy. Of course when I get back I get the long lost friend greeting so it's all good.

Greener pastures

When we are out on our walks there is this one patch of grass that we
pass that moose goes nuts for! He generally likes to nibble on grass
here and there, but this little pasture is different. He grazes a few
blades off of a clump then goes to the next and gets a few more then
on to the next. I finally have to pull him away. He is so crazy for it
that I wonder if we stumbled on Wally's glaucoma stash (http://dogsthatblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/its-for-glaucoma-i-swear.html
)! Doesn't he look a bit loopy in that last pic?

Bad Blogger!

I am afraid that summer is my busy season so I have to apologize for not being a very attentive blogger. This time of year I am out on the water working hard most days and come home very tired. Plus I travel some too (next week Curacao) making it hard to keep up with things. Although today is Thursday I have not had time (last week either) to do a True Colors Thursday post and may not do them again until things slow down a bit in the fall. I really enjoy doing them, but they take more time than the average post!

Another thing I have fallen hopelessly behind on is acknowledging awards! It is very ungracious of us and if you have left awards for us that I have failed to acknowledge I am sorry! I keep thinking I will get to them on the weekend but being a new homeowner keeps me busy on the weekends and then I can't remember who left what for us! Please don't be offended if this has happened or continues to happen, we do appreciate them and it is always a nice surprise!
I am going to try to keep up with posting and visiting our many favorite blogs (an ever expanding list!) but you may notice shorter and fewer posts for the next few months:-( I have tried to teach Moose to type so he could take over but he has not quite gotten the hang of it. Plus I am pretty sure he would be on here all day asking if anyone knew where his mom went, how to open the fridge and if anyone would like to come take him for a walk. I can imagine coming home to deliveries of crates of oinkies and stuffies and he might even start trolling the web for hot labragals! We can't have that!

Wordless Wednesday (Kong Time edition)

Wake up you sleepy head!

Am I the only one out there who has to wake her dog up on the morning?
It is 830 for pete's sake! Much better than the other way around I
suppose!

Meet Jake!

Just today my brother started fostering a dog through the Labrador Retriever Club of Potomac. His name is Jake and he is a 5 year old black lab who was found as a stray. We don't know much more about him but my brother says he is a little thin and although he weighs about 70 lbs he should probably weigh a bit more. If you go to their website you can read about how 54 labs were recently confiscated from a bad breeder and are in need of lots of care and foster or furever homes. If you or someone you know is looking for a lab and lives in DC Maryland or Virginia, please check out this site to see if you can help!

For now we would like to welcome Jake, Moose's foster cousin, to the family! Moose wants to meet him but I explained that he is like a thousand miles away!
PS Anyone have any advice on how to healthfully put weight on an adult labradog? Is it best to just up the kibble? Will it help to use puppy kibble since it is higher calorie? No signs that he is a picky eater or anything, he probably just has not had good access to food. He is not drastically underweight so maybe normal meals will work best?

Wordless Wednesday (Licking Lab edition)

p.s. Moose is not hurt at the moment, these are old pics after an incident at the dog park last year.

Happy 2nd Mooseiversary (& Blogoversary!)

On June 9 2007 my Moose adopterated me (as Wally would say) and that very day I started blogging about my boy. Two years ago I took a long drive to Jupiter Florida where Moose was staying at a LRRoF foster home. He had been hanging out there since his owner surrendered him a month earlier. He was livin' large along with 3 other labs and a husky. This is the first picture I took of him when we were loaded up in the car on the way home. He was named Raven when I brought him home but it was a whole week later when he finally told me his real name was Moose! He has been an awesome boy from the start but I think he was a bit uneasy at first. Being a new owner I was not sure what to make of it and worried he was unhappy but he settled in with me and other than our move to a new house, he has seemed happy since then!

To celebrate this anniversary Moose got a special treat! A cheeseburger, some cookies and carrots. He was beside himself excited!

He has never had a full people plate set before him on the floor! He waited very patiently....















...for awhile!

Then... nom nom nom!

He also got a new stuffy! It was not much but things have been busy lately!

True Colors Thursday... Purple

True Colors Thursday is a meme hosted by Blue and today's color is Purple!

These are purple sea fans. They are very common on Atlantic reefs.

Here is another lovely reef scene showing some sea fans. This picture was taken in 2002 at a place called white bank here off Key Largo. I am going back there tomorrow for the first time in ages and doubt it will still be so pretty. I think I will try to take the same photo for comparison... if I can find that spot!

This is a fairly rare coral called blue crust coral. Looks purple to me!

This is a Creole Wrasse's purple tail. They were all over where I was working the other day and I tried to get a pic but he turned away and I had to get back to work! I posted a different pic of them on my violet post.

Here are some purple sponges. This pic was taken around 100ft in Navassa Island. Even with a flash it is difficult to see true colors when you are that deep. These sponges are a really pretty irridescent purple when you see them in real life. You will have to take my word for it!

I admit to recycling this one from the recent violet post. It is one of my favorites though since it includes a beautiful thicket of my beloved elkhorn coral! The Moon Jelly in the foreground is a lovely purple. Pretty when they are not so close since they can have a nasty sting!

We could not find a new actual picture of Moose with something purple so we thought we would follow Joey & Zeke's lead and turn to Face in Hole for some help. Here is Moose as Dame Edna with puple hair!
Next week's color is ivory which I think will be pretty difficult but will see what I can do!

Lumpy goes to the vet and Welcome Back to the dog park

Moose went to the vet this morning for his annual shots and to have a lump checked out. It turns out he has not one but two new lumps (in addition to a 3rd one we had checked in the fall)! Doc wants to remove it soon because it feels a little too deep to be a lipoma. I am not going to get too worried just yet but it was not exactly what we wanted to hear! Everything else is fine and he is down to an emaciated 102lbs! The vet says it is a good weight for him but he seems less Moose-ish if he only ways 100lbs! Still it is easier on his knee so that is good.





After that I took my lumpy boy for a quick romp at the dog park since it was on the way home. This is a big deal because he has not been since last fall when he hurt his knee. He was very excited when we pulled in to the parking lot and was very happy to get in the gate. He got a fine how do you do from the 2 dogs that were there and trotted around with them and took a dip in the pool. When 2 more dogs arrived he really started running so we left since I did not want him to over do it!

Here he is with little boxer girl. We did not know any of the pups there but then we used to hang more with the evening crowd. I would love to take him more but I don't want to let him stay long and it is 20 miles away so it is a long trip for a short romp. Wish there was a closer park!


P.S. Our buddy Wally Tamale Corgador went to the vet today to check on his senior moments and other issues that have been causing him to feel poorly. We hope the doc had some good news for him and his brudder Oscar BS Teen who also went to the vet.

Wordless Wednesday (Moose Drool edition)

p.s. don't worry, he's not hurt, these are old pics.

TeddyNo Update!

I got an update on our dear TeddyNo so thought I would share with all of his fans!. His new dad sent some pics and a few sentences to LRRoF so I only got the update indirectly and can't get more specifics. He is apparently settling in with his dad, brother (older yellow lab with terminal illness) and a cat. It sounds like there have been some adjustments that have been slow (i.e. kitty has not been too fond of Teddy boy!) and he is being crated during the day presumably due to some of his dietary habits (i.e. eating houses), but the good news is that the dad is sticking with him through these adjustments so hopefully this will be furever. He said that he is 'really enjoying him' which I was delighted to hear!
P.S. for those of you new to the blog you can check out who teddy is from older posts here: http://dewdana.blogspot.com/search/label/Teddy

Summer coat?

After vacuuming up what seemed like an entire Moose worth of furs and getting handfulls of fur when petting my boy I decided it was time to furminate. Holy Cow! I have never gotten so much fur off of him! His coat generally sheds less than other labs I have known, and usually when I run the furminator over him I get a half a handful of fur out. This time it just keeps coming! I stopped b/c we both got tired but I was still getting tons of fur with each stroke! Crazy! Seems a little late to be shedding for summer given that it has been hot for at least a month here in south Florida!

For those of you who were concerned about his brush with raisins... so far so good. If the vet can see us in the AM then we will go. He has not shown any signs of trouble but he has a lump that I want to get checked and it is time for his vaccines anyway.