Thankful Thursday

I am feeling bogged down by life's travails today so it's a good day to take notice of what I'm thankful for. I feel so lucky to head out for a little afternoon walk with our dogs and to see a herd of elk.

Here's a closeup of a few of them.

... and here's a view of most of the herd.

One of the things I'm emotionally bogged down by is the fact that someone shot one of these beautiful animals today. They didn't get a clean shot so the injured elk ran into the forest, and I happened upon the trail of blood. It hurt my soul to see it.

I also feel lucky to be getting to know moose, even though the mother moose terrify me. Here are some recent views of relatively docile moose. A cow...

.... and another cow moose, relaxing in the "warm" snow on a frigid day!

A calf who watched me go by and looked cute with snow on his/her lips.

And I am grateful beyond words to have a bear in a den that has trail cameras monitoring it. The bear has been sticking her head out lately to eat snow. If I were picky, I'd ask for better light at the den so the photos would turn out better but I'm not picky ;)

And, of course, I am thankful for our Duo. Sweet Shyla makes me smile daily.

And R... He is the most intense dog I've ever known. I wonder if he's the first dog ever to decide that his "alert" to a scent in nosework should involve taking a bow and resting his snout on the "hot" box containing the scent! He just started this habit the other day, and it makes me smile!

I am thankful that we can get surgery to try to fix R's elbow. We are lucky to have such incredible vets on the case.

That's a lot to be thankful for!