Wordless Wednesday: Bird hunting edition

Wordless Wednesday: Time for walkies edition

Snake Invasion

As you saw in our last Wordless Wednesday post, Moose went strolling through the mangroves in our neighborhood prompting our fellow Floridians the Barkalot Boyz and even far away Honey in New Zealand to ask about the prospect of encountering snakes in there! Eeeyikes! It never occurred to me! We have encountered small snakes on walks and even on our back yard so not sure why I did not think of it. I am not really bothered by snakes but of course a dog could get into trouble not knowing what it is or startling one and getting bit. Even worse, for you non Floridians who may not have heard... we have a bit of a problem with Burmese Pythons down here!(If the embedded video won't play you can watch it here!)

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Florida Pythons on the Loose
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I learned here that one was spotted less than a mile from the Moose Lodge last year! Holy Cow! 

Moose heard that these pythons are a little bigger than his stuffie so wanted me to call on our Buddy Parker who has snake wrangling experience and Jack who went to actual snake school to come down here and help get these reptiles under control!

In the mean time I think we best stay out of places like that and if you are in the Florida Keys and you see a snake that is way too big you should call the Python Patrol!

UPDATE: Here is a dramatization of Moose being attacked by a python! (OK, it is our Pal Domino showing his Snake Wrangling skilz but it is pretty close!)

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?

Look Who's Walking Now!

ALL CLEAR! (to gradually resume all normal activities)! Yea! Moose got his last (baring any unusual problems) checkup and x-rays from the Ortho doc and he said he looks great and the surgery site is fully healed! I guess I was sort of expecting that but as I was talking to him it sunk in and when he said 'walks' I had to keep myself from crying I was so happy. I think it is still sinking in that I can now take my dog for a walk! Granted it won't be a long one yet but he can start to be a normal guy again!

So we rushed home and went for our VERY FIRST WALK! This is not only the first walk in >3months, it is his first walk in his new neighborhood! Other than the last trip to the vet he has literally never stepped off our property since we moved here. He stopped and looked at me a few times like he was wondering "really? we are going this way?" at least that is what it looked like. He was also entirely engrossed in the new sights, smells and sounds. The sounds included lots of dogs going totally nuts when he walked by... lots of woofing and flinging themselves at windows. I am pretty sure they were just welcoming him to the neighborhood ;-). I have to include a pic of him peeing (he is mortified) because since he has been confined to the back yard he has not been marking things and lifting his leg so that is back to normal. Plus he is standing on his TPLO leg which he has been doing from the start but since he was not lifting his leg to pee I wondered if it was partly out of fatigue or discomfort. Apparently not! Just no need to mark his own yard.

As for the details for fellow ortho-dogs... We are 90 days post op and he has been using his leg fine for at least a month although he still does not put full weight on it when he is standing still. Doc says that will continue to improve. For the past few weeks I have let him out in the back yard unleashed when I am out there and that has been fine except he overdid it on Saturday and was limping but that was all better by Monday (phew!).
I am posting his x-rays for comparison to last time. I can definitely see a difference although there are still two gaps that I expect will continue to fill in. After his last round of x-rays I started giving him silica supplements and really wonder if that did not speed things along. I doubt it hurt and it was not that expensive so worth a try if you are trying to heal bone. He took 500mg 2x a day in addition to his Gluc/Chon Vitamin C & E + Fish oil. The doc did not give us specifics on what he is allowed but I am aiming for 10 min walks 3x a day for the next week to see how it goes. We walked for about 5 min outside the vet then when we got home we probably took a 10 min walk and he seemed a little sore but the man-handling at the vet might have added to that. It is also hard to call something a 10min walk when he stops and snifs so much so for comparison purposes I think his 10 min is more like 6 or 7 min of actual walking.

Prison Furlough!

Moose went off to the vet for his 2 week check today. This is the first time in about 11 days that he has been out the front door of the house, so even the front yard on the way to the car was a sniff-fest! I imagine his brain was in sensory overload! He loves going anywhere, vet included but today I could really tell he was in doggie happy land! He had to stop and sniff everything and I let him because he has not been allowed to 'stop and sniff the roses' in awhile! It was nice (and a little sad) to see him be his normal full of life self for the first time since surgery. I just want him to be a doggie every day of his life but this is the only way to make that happen. I wish I could explain that to him but he does not seem to hold it against me too much.
Today's visit was a little ahead of schedule because he has started limping a bit more than he was in the first week after surgery. He does not want to put all his weight on the TPLO leg and when he does he sort of stumbles. I posted some video of his somewhat wobbly gait. He is definitely walking a lot better than before surgery but a little worse than last week. Doc says things are coming along well however it seems he has developed patellar tendonitis from over-doing it and needs to keep the activity to a real minimum and it should resolve on its own. Since the poor boy does NOTHING as it is I can only blame his happy dance and not sure how I can keep that to a minimum but will have to try.

Walking in the rain

The rain would not stop so moose went walking in his fancyboy red
raincoat!

wildlife

Moose saw some peacocks on a walk today!

Moose's New Trick!

Well, actually it is not so new, he has been getting his collar on command for at least a month or so but I just today got it on camera! Before we go for a walk I ask him where his collar is and tell him
to go find it and he brings it to me! He learned this trick using his normal collar (the big one!) so I was really surprised the other day when I asked him to get his collar and he picked up an old collar that was lying around even though he had not worn it for walks recently meaning he knows what collar really means (i.e. the thing that goes around his neck) rather than it just being that one object he was taught to get. He is such a smart boy!

Walk in the Park

Today Moose and I visited a new park called Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park. We did not even know about it until I heard about it from from a FB friend. We heard there was lots of water but we didn't get there until 5pm so we did not have much time to explore before it got dark. We found one trail that led to water but the entry was too steep. Still we had fun poking around the trails. Next time we will have to go earlier and bring water for my boy! He was absolutely parched from all the sniffing and running!