It’s Been A Year
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I’m a music lover. If you don’t know, I am.

When I’m at my desk, I’m usually listening to music. All of the photos on this site were probably edited to music.

As I’m writing this, I’m listening to current female country artists on Pandora.

This song released in December of 2022, “It’s Been a Year” by Ashley Cooke makes me think of Moose. The one year anniversary of his death is September 12, 2023.

Here’s the official video of the song (you’ll have to watch an ad or two before it starts.)

Every time I’ve heard this song on the radio for the past year, I’ve thought about Moose and what September 12, 2023 means. And where I am today and why we are still a one dog family, a year later.

I am going to try to write Moose’s story. My apologies in advance. This is going to be long. After all, this dog that we adopted when he was 7 lived to be 15.

We Are a Two Dog Family
My first dog as an adult Sloan, was a chocolate lab / weimeraner mix. She had a weim body but she was chocolate. I adopted her as a 5 week old puppy in 1996. She was my world and my first heart dog.

I loved her like I’ve never loved any of my other dogs. I’ve tried really hard to work through the decision to euthanize her when she as 12.5. She had cancer and was really sick. It was the right decision but it crushed me.

When Sloan was a year old, I decided to adopt another lab (a yellow named Sam) and ever since I’ve always had 2 dogs and for a while 3. They’ve always been labrador retrievers. I love labs for their companionship. I love having a velcro dog. (For those wondering, the husband Don entered my life in 2000 after Sam.)

My reasons for wanting 2 dogs were mostly selfish: I never wanted to be without a dog. If one died, I always wanted to have another one. The thought of coming home and not having a dog in the house was something I never wanted to face. Of course, there were other reasons but this is a big one.

Every time we’ve had to say goodbye to a dog, we’ve always immediately started the search for another dog. We adopt dogs from local rescues and we prefer to adopt the older ones. I did the puppy thing once with Sloan and once was enough. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE puppies… when they’re someone else’s.

Because Sloan was chocolate, I never could bring myself to consider getting another chocolate until we were searching in 2014. It took me over 6 years to even consider one.

A Dog Named Deuce
On September 22, 2014 I emailed one of the fosters at Lab Rescue of NC about a 7 year old chocolate labrador named Deuce. I was a volunteer with Lab Rescue of NC. We’d adopted a lab from them previously and for a couple of years, I’d been helping them do phone interviews with families who’d filled out an adoption application. I knew this group well. So well that I’d actually had a little history with Deuce.

Here’s that story:

I graduated from UNC Chapel Hill. One of the rescue’s board members was also a huge North Carolina fan. Carolina’s biggest rival and perhaps the biggest rival in all of college basketball is Duke University. In the spring of 2014, a chocolate lab was surrendered to the rescue and his name was Duke.

I will preface this by saying, based upon a dog’s history sometimes I am a fan of changing a dog’s name. If he’s been yelled at a lot or has been abused in other ways and associates his name with fear or pain, I am all for changing the dog’s name.

However, I didn’t know anything about this dog but his name was Duke. I emailed the board member and suggested we change the dog’s name. She did. Duke became Deuce and he went to live with one of the rescue’s foster families.

Fast forward 6 months to September of 2014 and Don and I are on our way to meet Deuce with our yellow lab Willow. Four days later on Thursday October 2, 2014 I picked up Deuce and brought him to our house.

I didn’t love the name Deuce (I still can’t spell it.) This dog was full of personality and we immediately started calling him Moose. He didn’t miss a beat and the name was perfect for him.

The First 36 Hours with Moose
Moose had bonded with his foster family and especially their 2 dogs in the 6 months that he lived with them. I didn’t fully understand that so his transition to our house was a bit rough.

We’d had Moose for about 36 hours when we left him home alone with Willow. It was a Saturday morning and I had to work and Don was at the gym.

Leaving him with the run of the house was a mistake.

He found the dry food dog bin in the laundry room. He got it open and he ate as much as he wanted. Somehow in this process, he closed the laundry room door locking him in. By the time I got home 45 minutes later, I opened the laundry room door to a dog and the floor covered in vomit and drool and a laundry room door that had been destroyed.

We had been told that Moose didn’t crate well. He would flip out and do whatever he could to get out to the point of hurting himself. I think he experienced the same when he realized he was enclosed in the laundry room.

I got Moose and the laundry room cleaned up and about that time Don got home. He wanted to contact the rescue and give Moose back but I said no. We needed to give this dog time to decompress. This was our fault not Moose’s.

We didn’t leave him alone for the next 2 weeks. I had a neighbor who was a very good friend and stay at home mom. If I had to work, she came over to “dog sit” with Moose. As long as someone was with him, he was totally fine. He was more than fine, he was happy.

Eventually we started to leave him home alone for very short periods of time. We put up a baby gate to keep him and Willow enclosed in the two front bedrooms of our house when we weren’t home. We also opened the shades in one of the rooms so he could lay on the bed and look at the window. This solution worked.

For the next 7 years, this is what we did every time we left the house.

Moose suffered from separation anxiety. He needed routine, he needed human interaction, and he needed to understand that we were coming back. These are the things I learned very quickly about him.

Vacations to Hilton Head with Moose
When we vacation as a family, we load the dogs in the car and go to beach in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Because we were nervous about leaving Moose alone in a new place, we always hired a pet sitter to come and be with him if Don and I both wanted to leave the house at the same time.

He always had another dog with him but he got anxious if someone wasn’t there with him. We tried leaving him for short periods of time but it was obvious that he was stressed. We didn’t want to do that to him and we didn’t want to take a chance of him destroying the rental house so we hired a dog sitter for him if Don and I wanted to do anything together.

Every Single Time.

We loved him and wanted to make sure he knew he was okay. As soon as the pet sitter got there, he’d lay down beside her and he was totally fine. He was fine if we left, he just needed someone there with him.

Going on vacation to HH was always nice but Moose dictated what I did. Hanging out on the beach with Don under the umbrella was something I gave up doing because of Moose unless we had someone at the house with him.

This was a sacrifice I was more than willing to make but it meant that I didn’t always do what I would’ve liked to do. Welcome to parenthood, right?

Moose’s Sniffer Always Got Him in Trouble
Moose loved food. I think he loved food more than people and that is saying a lot.

He was the most food motivated dog I’ve ever owned and his nose worked really well. It got him in trouble constantly.

I feel like I’m pretty dog savvy but I couldn’t un-train this behavior.

Moose would snarf up anything he found on a walk and then he’d end up with an upset stomach. A 90lb dog with an upset stomach is never any fun. For him or me.

If he picked up something and I tried to grab it out of his mouth, he would chomp down harder. Most dogs will not bite down hard if they know your hand or finger is in their mouth. Moose would bite down harder trying to claim what he thought was his because he found it first. The only way I stopped this was to have a treat with me that I could offer Moose so he’d drop whatever he had and go for what I was holding.

This behavior was a lot to try and manage over the years. It was probably my least favorite thing about him.

I usually ended up with a drool covered hand for the rest of the walk home.

As his eyesight started to fail in his later years, you had to make sure he didn’t take your finger off when giving him a treat. Flat palm was always the rule and then you still needed to be careful.

Velcro Dog
But this dog was such a lover. And he loved me. He was my shadow. He followed me everywhere. If I got up, he did too.

He loved going to sleep on our dog couch with his head in my lap and I loved these moments too.

This is what I miss. I miss having a dog that just wants to be loved. I miss a dog that wants to give so much love.

Moose the Dog Model
With Moose’s help, I became the dog photographer I am today. He was my go-to model. He was always up for helping me (as long as I had a bed or something for him to lay on) and treats.

I actually got one of my first, big commercial photography clients because I was looking for a good bed for him. I found Big Barker and they became a great client of mine. Photos I’ve taken of dogs on their beds still pop up on my social media.

Moose helped me establish my commercial pet photography business and I am so grateful to him. My bank account appreciated it too.

He was an excellent dog bed model. Big Barker wanted to know if he’d put his head down on the bolster… that’s a “Yes, no problem at all. You want a dog model to sell how comfortable these beds are, I’ve got the dog for you.”

Looking Back
This dog ruled my life from 2014 until he left us in 2022 and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I wanted to provide him with the best life possible and I tried to use my best judgement to do that. Writing this down and putting this out there for others to read and judge, makes me question some of my choices though.

When Moose left us on September 12th last year, I was so sad but also relieved. Relieved because I knew this day had been coming for a while and I knew he was no longer in pain. Relieved because Moose had required a lot of my attention. I know this was a choice I made. I chose to put him first but he wasn’t always an easy dog.

As this year has passed, I’ve missed him more and more. The feeling of relief has been replaced with sadness and me really missing him. Missing his presence. Because he had such a presence in my life.

But I also have this sweet feeling when I think of him. A feeling that I did what I felt was best for Moose while he was part of our family and that he knew it. He knew he was loved and he gave so much love to me. I am forever grateful for that.

So many things are different with him gone. I think I needed to finally write them down to try and reconcile the past 12 months in my head. If you’ve read this far, know that “it’s been a year.”

Moose the Ham
I miss Moose every day. I’d love to sit on the dog couch with his head in my lap listening to him snore. I miss seeing the hilarious faces he made when he slept (see the above cell phone photos.) I am almost to the point where I miss having his head in the dishwasher as I’m trying to load it. Because he did that too. A LOT!

These 2 photos sum up Moose. He was a ham.

We Are a One Dog Family
For a year we’ve been a one dog family. We’ve looked occasionally. We event met a pure bred “white” lab last month but we said no. He just wasn’t the right dog for us for several reasons.

Living life with one dog is easy. Molly by herself is easy and right now easy feels right.

Maybe we’ll stay a one dog family. But I sure do miss having a silly, velcro dog around.

Life wasn’t always the easiest with Moose but I sure do miss him.

Blog Circle
This is a blog circle and our topic this week is Memorial since it was recently Rainbow Remembrance Day. Next up is New England pet photographer Darlene Woodward shares tips to choosing the best location for your pet's end-of-life portrait session. Be sure to click the link at the bottom of each post and you’ll end up back here when you’ve made your way around the circle.

Thank you for loving and missing Moose too.