My Rescued Dog Moose, the Chocolate Lab

This is my dog Moose and his adoption story.

He joined our family in October of 2014. I had purchased my first Nikon two months before he came to live with us. He’s been my go to model on this entire photography journey.

Moose is now retired from professional dog modeling because of his age and health issues but every once in a while I will snap a few photos of him.

Moose was surrendered to Lab Rescue of NC (LRNC) when his owner was moving out of state and didn’t want to take him with her. His name was Duke.

Side note: I graduated from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. If you’re from this area or if you are a college basketball fan, you know that there is a major college basketball rivalry in my state between the Duke Blue Devils and the North Carolina Tarheels (my school.) The schools are 7 miles from each other. There is bitter animosity between the fans of the schools. BITTER

One of the Board members of the Lab Rescue group was a Carolina fan too so when Duke the chocolate lab was surrendered his name was changed to Deuce.

Back to Moose’s story…

My very first dog as an adult was a chocolate lab / weim mix. Since she’d died in 2008, I’d not been able to even consider getting another chocolate lab. It seemed like the right time to look for one.

Six months after he was surrendered, he was still being fostered by LRNC and we were searching for a another dog. We thought we’d consider a chocolate lab.

I found this dog named Deuce online. We loaded Willow up in the car and took her to meet him.

They got along fine. Deuce was more interested in hanging with his foster dad than he was interested in Willow.

We thought he’d fit just fine in our family so the following week, I made the 90 minute drive to go and pick him up.

I knew the story behind his name change from Duke to Deuce. I didn’t love the name Deuce either.

When we met him, he was interested in everything. His nose was constantly in search of food. He sniffed every crevice of my car on the ride home.

We changed his name from Deuce to Moose. He didn’t miss a beat and his name totally fits him.

The first week was rough. Mostly for Moose but for us too.

We didn’t realize he suffered from separation anxiety until my husband Don and I were both gone from the house at the same time for about an hour. I came home to Moose, locked in the laundry room and vomit everywhere.

He’d found his bin of dry food, managed to get it open and then proceeded to eat to his heart’s content. Then he threw it up. Then he must’ve realized in his exuberance over finding an endless supply of food, he’d managed to close himself in the laundry room and now he was locked in. He tried to claw his way out.

The door and door frame had to be replaced. You’d think that a laundry room door would be a standard size, right? Nope, we had to custom order a new door.

Of course looking back now, I realize we should’ve have given Moose the run of the house while we were gone. But I guess you don’t know what you don’t know.

We’d never had anything like this happen before with our three other rescues. But we’d never met The Moose before. ha!

The laundry room incident happened in the first 48 hours of us bringing this newly rescued dog into our home. My husband was ready to send him back.

But I saw a sweet dog that need a chance. A dog that we needed to try harder to understand and meet his needs. He was a rescued dog that needed an understanding dog mom and dog dad.

I stayed home the rest of that weekend so that Moose wasn’t ever alone.

This was in 2014, way before covid. Don was traveling for work the following week so any time I needed to leave my house to go to my dog walking jobs, I had a neighborhood friend come and sit with Moose.

Yes, this dog walker hired a pet sitter. My own dog needed a dog sitter.

But you know what, he figured out he was safe. He figured out that we were coming back.

Moose is still my shadow and if I’m not home, he is Don’s shadow. He wants to be wherever we are.

Our “dog couch” is right behind my desk. Multiple times a day now, Moose will paw at the back of my chair or he’ll get up and stand beside me and stare at me because he wants me attention.

So, you guessed it. When he does this, I go and sit with him. If I sit on the dog couch, he’ll hop up beside me, curl up and go to sleep.

That’s all he wants. The security of knowing he’s not alone.

I’m not sure how much time my almost 14 year old, 90 lb rescued dog has left so if he wants me to sit with him, I do.

The things most important to Moose in life are people, food, and walks.

I think he prefers food to people though. If Don goes into the kitchen, he will leave me and go beg for a morsel of food.

We love this rescued dog. I always say he means well. He is the sweetest dog and all he wants are cuddles and pets but his nose does get him trouble all the time. Still.

His eyesight might be going but his nose still works just fine.

I’m so grateful we found Duke / Duece / now Moose all those years ago. He’s the bestest boi. And his name fits. He is a MOOSE.

These are a few photos I snapped of him just before Valentine’s Day as he was wandering around the yard. They’re not my favorite photos of him that I’ve ever taken but they capture his sweet nature in his golden years.