Poor Moose

Poor Moosey.  He had a rough day on Monday.  It started with the drive to Raleigh.  He stood up the whole way.  2 1/2 hours.  Kurt drives a Honda Element, so Moose can stand between the driver and passenger seats and see out the front.  He doesn't want to miss anything.  Sometimes he helps Kurt drive by sticking his head on the armrest, nudging Kurt's arm and subsequently nudging the steering wheel if Kurt isn't careful.  It's very nice of Moose to try to help, but there's a reason dogs aren't allowed to drive.
After the long trip, they arrive at the vet and Moose has his examination.  They kept him for the afternoon so they could sedate him to do x-rays, so Kurt had to wander around Raleigh for a few hours looking for a Starbucks WiFi connection.  He returned to pick up Moose at 4.  Apparently Moosey was still rather doped up because when they brought him out, he saw Kurt through the glass partition next to the door and WHACK walked right into it like a bird into a window, causing a collective groan from everyone seated in the waiting room.  Poor Moose.  Good thing he has a hard head.  
So the good news is that Moose is a candidate for the hip replacement.  He's healthy and his skeletal frame is big enough to support the bionic hip. I wish blogger had sound effects so I could play the nananananana sound from the Bionic Woman whenever I say bionic hip.  Whatever happened to Lindsay Wagner anyway?  Did her career wither away and die on Lifetime like Meredith Baxter Birney and Melissa Gilbert?  If you want to watch something funny...check this out.  Bionic Woman on Hulu  Weren't the 70's hilariously cheesy?  They also have Fantasy Island on Hulu which was one of my favorites when I was little.  Just to see Tattoo ring the bell and say "De Plene, De Plene" again is worth the visit to this site.  What was the deal with that show?  There was some really weird crap that happened on Fantasy Island.   Maybe it was just Ricardo Montalban's accent but I always felt like I was getting away with watching something naughty.
Back to Moose.  After a long drive home, Moose and Kurt arrive to much fanfare from Savannah, who has been sulking all day.  Poor Moose walks in the kitchen stoned as a hippie at a Grateful Dead concert.  He just stood there in the middle of the room kind of swaying for a few moments before he made it over to the water bowl.  He was very suspicious of us (again, much like a stoned hippie would be), refused treats and dinner and managed to 'hide' in the bedroom on his dog bed most of the evening.  He wasn't back to normal until the next morning when he realized how hungry he was. 
Oh the other piece of good news is that he only needs one hip replacement.  He had already had a femoral excision (where they remove the hip ball) 6 years ago and the doctor felt that once the other hip is fixed, he'll get enough strength from that hip to compensate for the other one.  Whew.  Great for Moose and great for our bank account.  It will only cost us the expense of a European Vacation for 2 instead of for 4.  We didn't want to go on vacation anyway.  Sigh.  We haven't scheduled the surgery yet; we're trying to figure out when is the best week to do it.  They only do surgeries on Thursdays and we'll have to pick him up on the following Saturday.  He'll be pretty miserable for the first few weeks and won't be able to walk downstairs to go outside in the backyard.  We'll have to walk him on a leash out front which should be fun since he goes bananas every time he sees the leash come out.  I'm sure Savannah won't exactly be Florence Nightingale either.  One of her favorite pastimes is to grab his back legs while he's walking up the stairs.  Such a little stinker, she is.
So keep Moosey in your thoughts as we get him scheduled for his big operation.  It was such a miserable experience for him (and for me) 6 years ago that I'm dreading it, but he'll be a much happier, pain-free dog 8 weeks later who will finally be able to give Savannah P. Dog a run for her money! Nanananananana...