Moe – The Big Brown Dog

The third dog to join our pack was Moe.

As you can see from the picture, Moe is camera-shy.  In any picture I take he has this bewildered look.

Moe’s story starts when a wonderful woman in the north end of Toronto, Ontario heard about a dog who was living in a farmer’s field with her six puppies. November, in Canada, is a tough time for any dog to be exposed to the elements, it would have been especially hard on a new mother with puppies. The farmer would occasionally feed the family, however, he was growing tired of them, and was threatening to drown the puppies and be done with them. So the heroine of this story sent her husband to retrieve the dogs. By time he got there three puppies were missing. The starving mother and three emaciated male puppies where still huddled under the bushes in their make shift home. All four dogs were welcomed into the woman’s home. She paid all the medical bills and nursed all four dogs back to good health.

Because of his coat, one puppy became Curly. Naturally, the other two then were named Larry and Moe. Once they were all healthy, the next task was to find good homes for them all. We were lucky enough to pass her rigorous screening and were allowed to view the puppies. When the door to their enclosure was opened Moe was the first one to tumble out to explore the world. Unsteady on his saucer sized feet, Moe stumbled over to my husband and immersed himself in a rigorous game of tug of war with my husband’s sock. That was it, we could not resist this determined puppy. No one had expected Moe to survive. He was the most malnourished of the three puppies and full of worms when first taken to the vet. A few weeks later when we first saw him he was a brave adventurous puppy.

Fast forward 7 1/2 years and he is a 100 lb trickster, with a personality bigger than life itself. He keeps us on our toes. Often when my husband and I are watching TV he will come prancing into the room dragging a towel he has “stolen” from a bathroom. He doesn’t chew or rip it; he simply presents it as a trophy, proof of his masterful hunting skill. He has some minor health issues – some food allergies and hypothyroidism – but nothing that can’t be controlled with medication and a strict diet. We are not sure if it’s a throwback to his first few hard weeks, but he loves finding a “den” for sleeping and can often be found sleeping in a bath tub. It’s unfortunate that he doesn’t like his picture taken, he is a very handsome Lab X with big brown soulful eyes. Of all our dogs, it is Moe that makes us laugh the most. I can’t imagine our life without our clown dog.