Moe's New Shoes & World Domination

If I had known that my dog Moe was going to be such a wealth of blog material, I might have named this blog something a little different... maybe The Blog of Moe.... but that isn't what I named it. I will however continue to use Moe for fodder as long as he continues to be so darn funny. 

Moe's New Shoes

Moe is a puppy, and his little paws are very tender and sensitive to the extreme cold and snow that frequently happens in this area. With the storm we had over New Year's, Moe ended up with frozen paws that hurt him so badly that he just limped and whimpered when I had to take him out every so often. He would rotate thru his four paws because they all hurt from the extremely cold temperatures outside. Well, it isn't a good thing to have hurt paws and puppy messes on your kitchen floor thanks to the temperatures, so I decided that Moe needed little snow booties or shoes. Yes, you can get those here in Colorado and other states that have extreme winters. Even sled dogs in Alaska during the Iditarod use some type of major heavy duty shoes. So I had to buy Moe some, and oh my gosh, they are expensive! Anyhoo, I had to buy the basic little booties for Moe and they are so tiny! He is full grown and has little paws, so he ended up with XXS shoes. These shoes have a rubber hard plastic sole with little treadmarks for traction and they go up over his paws up to his first joint and close with a velcro strap that wraps around his leg right below the joint.


We went to a store called Wag N' Wash and obviously had Moe with us for trying shoes on him. OMG! Trying those shoes on was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time! We started with XS, and they ended up being too big and he was having a very hard time walking in the shoes while in the store. He sat there and let me put the shoes on him and he looks at me with that "WTF did I do to deserve this Mommy??" look in his eyes and then when he was walking, it was more of a hopping thing.... he didn't want to put his back paws on the floor, so he kept hopping from one back foot to the other and meanwhile his front paws are barely touching the ground and limping which just contributed to the hopping thing. He was shuffle-hopping around the store and the shoes kept slipping because they were too big, so I tried the XXS size, which did fit better, but poor Moe was still hopping and while he is doing this funny hop-limp-shuffle, he kept leaning his head down to his various paws trying to pull at the velcro to get them off.  The whole experience lasted about 15-20 minutes. Moe gradually got over the hopping walk and while still walking funny, began to walk a little more normally when he started playing with other dogs in the store.


I left the booties on Moe for the walk outside to the truck and the ride home. When I got poor Moe inside, he sprawled on the livingroom floor and tried to chew on the velcro and ribbed top. He just laid there on my lap with this pitiful look on his face and wouldn't do anything. I finally got him to walk around the livingroom in the shoes and he starts the whole hopping/chewing on velcro thing all over again. He was rotating thru all four paws again in trying to not put his feet down on the floor. He wouldn't even play with his brand new toys that he got that afternoon while wearing the shoes. 


I finally took pity on poor Moe and took the shoes off, and zoom! there he went! Moe was so excited about getting the shoes off that he took off and ran all over the livingroom making sure he still had all four feet. Once he ran for a minute or two, he laid down on the floor and licked all four of his paws while glaring at me. Even now, a day after the shoes, he still walks all funny/hoppy-like each time we put the shoes on him to go out. We are in the middle of another snowstorm, so the ground has been super cold, and poor Moe has been hopping outside with his new shoes. I tell y'all, I have not seen anything this funny in a while. Moe is such a funny puppy. 

World Domination

My oldest son, K, came into my bedroom yesterday evening and said he needed to learn how to do a coup d'etat. I looked up from my laptop and said "What did you just say K?" He looks at me with *that* look in his eyes that every single parent of teenagers interprets to mean "I am going to say something that is going to make fun of you and I have no problem laughing at you". Yes, fellow parents, you know exactly what look I mean. Yes, *that* look. K looks at me (with that look) again and once more says, "I need to learn how to do a coup d'etat" I looked fully at him and said, "But K, that is a military coup that is very bloody and violent that takes thousands of lives and replaces a legit government with a military government". This was particularly distressing to me on this day because I had just finished watching a depressing movie in class the other day about the Pinochet military coup of 1973 in Chile. K gives me *that* look a third time and says "I know that Mommy", so I asked him why he wanted to learn how to do a coup d'etat. He laughs and says because it is a chess move that involves the King and wiping out the majority of your opponents pieces. My jaw hit the floor and I just stared at him and finally got over my dumbfoundedness and just had to laugh. K, the stinker, really had me going there for a minute and he thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. He knows I am clueless about chess and took great delight in tormenting me with letting me think he had plans for world domination. Kids, ya gotta love them... otherwise we would kill them entirely too easily and often. 

And now something to warm up the cold and snowy night.