Only in Minnesota can it snow one day, and then two weeks later reach 90 plus degrees. I guess it keeps us on our toes right? All I can say is the winter coat and boots have officially retired to the basement for the summer and they are not making a return for a loooong time. I am pretty excited for the warm weather and the thunderstorms too!

Yesterday was a fairly quiet one around here. The pooch had a rough day–I’ll get into that in a second.

Lunch yesterday was one of my favorites. I kept it very simple and did a slightly modified version of my sweet and creamy salad. In the mix was baby spring lettuce, fresh mozzarella, strawberries, avocado, black beans, and Newman’s Own Lite honey mustard dressing.

I also munched on a bunch of trail mix.

For dinner I threw together a plate of leftover taco salad from our Mother’s Day lunch. Why I don’t make large batches of food at all times and have leftovers frequently, I am not sure? Who doesn’t love a meal that comes together in a matter of minutes? Leftovers are the best! I think it tasted better this time around actually. Seriously so good.

After I snapped these photos I realized I forgot to add shredded cheese and a couple of crumpled up whole grain chips.

I may have to get creative with the rest of the chicken leftovers though—I do get tired of the same meal if I have it more than 2-3 times in a row. I may freeze it for another time too. We’ll see if I catch any creative vibes later on and that will be my deciding factor.

Moose’s Dental Work

Anyway, let’s talk about the pup. Last Friday, we were cleaning Moose’s teeth and noticed that one of his molars was completely cracked all the way up to his gums. My stomach turned when I saw it because it looked so painful, yet Moose wasn’t giving us one single sign that he was in discomfort or pain. After agreeing that we needed to call the vet asap, we first continued on to the other side of his mouth and noticed ANOTHER tooth that was cracked. What had this dog gotten in to?! Again, he had given no signs that anything was wrong meaning he probably was feeling just fine. However, you can’t just leave these two huge cracked molars sitting in his mouth because the risk of infection, abscesses and other dental related issues are sky-high. So, we called the vet and made an appointment for him for yesterday.

First of all, dropping him off at his appointment yesterday was heart breaking. As I handed him over to the vet and started to leave, he looked back at me with his puppy eyes that said, “Mom, where are you going? No, don’t leave.” My heart broke and I had to turn away. I know some of you are thinking come on, he’s just a dog, but he is my little man, he’s my child and his pain is my pain! I can only imagine how tough it’s going to be when I actually have a human child. Geez louise! I’m such a sap.

Going in to the appointment, we knew that they were for sure going to have to extract one tooth and possibly two, but for some reason I was thinking positively and thinking they would really only need to pull one. Well, at about 8:30 yesterday morning they called us and gave us the news that they would definitely need to be pulling both teeth. My heart fell to my stomach. My poor guy!

I didn’t hear anything after that until about noon when the vet called me to tell me how the procedure had gone. Unfortunately, they were only able to pull the one tooth yesterday because of his size (he’s 95 lbs again!), and because of the size of the tooth. They were having a hard time getting all of the roots of the tooth and the one tooth had taken 2 1/2 hours which means he was under anesthesia for 2 1/2 hours. The vet didn’t want to risk the same thing happening on the other side that day, because that is a long time to be under anesthesia, so we had to schedule the other extraction for next Monday. He has to go through all of this again.

He was so groggy when we got him home last night. He is on a lot of pain medication and he seems to be doing fine. He does have a little swelling this morning but again, he shows no signs of pain and doesn’t wince or whine when I look at his mouth. The vet is so kind and told me to bring him by this afternoon if I feel it isn’t going down and they can take a peak at it. I know he is probably just fine but I’d rather be safe than sorry and I will probably bring him in.

You can see a little swelling in this photo on his right side…

Needless to say, after we picked him up last night he did a whole lot of lying around.

Despite being a little groggy, I was actually surprised at how coherent he really was. He wanted to be outside, and he wanted to play, but I had to keep him inside for the most part and make sure he continued to rest. Oh my little baby!

Anyway, that’s what is going on around here!

Questions of the day:

• Have you ever had to deal with any health issues with your pets? Does it break your heart as much as it does mine?!
• What is your favorite “leftover” food? 

I enjoy leftover tacos, and meatloaf always seems to taste better the second day for some reason!