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.”
Kim Hollis
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