So continuing with this site's theme of procrastination, here's what Murphy has been up to over the summer, since Allie's wedding.

Above you see one of the big developments around here, Murphy's obsession with Allie's stuffed bear, Patches. When Allie (i.e. my father) was packing everything up for her move to Seattle she had to go through a ton of stuff she'd left at my parents' house a couple years ago. Among her things were a bunch of stuffed animals. Murphy of course took quite a liking to many of them, but really took to this little bear. He paraded around with it, tossed it around, hid it upstairs. So Allie decided that Murphy would truly love Patches (who in fact didn't even have a name when she belonged to Allie) and let Murphy have her. Now Murphy likes to take Patches everywhere he goes, and even presents Patches to you every time you come home.

Next up, Murphy's 4th birthday!

I know everyone says this, but I can't believe how the time has flown. Murphy is rapidly turning from a young adult to a truly grown up dog. And what does every grown up dog want for his birthday? A potato flour cake, in several different shapes, no less!

So a few weeks prior to his birthday I started looking around for a wheat, dairy, chicken, lamb and beef free cake for Murph. With surprisingly few results. So I had to search on the internet for a recipe for some sort of hypoallergenic doggie cake...with no results. Eventually I found a recipe for a human potato flour banana cake:

7 eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
1 cup potato starch flour
3 mashed bananas
1 cup ground walnuts

Garnish:
Fresh strawberries, sliced
Icing sugar

Beat whites until stiff, set aside. In separate bowl, beat yolks and sugar together. And potato starch slowly, beating to a smooth consistency. Add mashed bananas and ground nuts. Gently fold mixture into whites. Grease bottom but not sides of tube pan. (I also made two little cakes, above). Pour batter into pan and bake at 350F for 45 minutes. Turn pan upside down and let cool. Garnish with strawberries and icing sugar.

So that sounds all well and good, but unfortunately the tube pan didn't work out so well:

But Murphy wasn't too concerned. He just wanted to sample the cake:
 

Turns out everyone enjoyed the cake, dogs and humans alike. It was quite light, almost like an angel food cake, but a little chewier. We enjoyed that floppy tube cake pan for days.

So after the food came the presents. Jason, my parents and I all gave him gifts:

  

On the left is Ella the Elephant, from Jason. She has a squeak, and arms and legs made this thick wire that makes her perfect for tugging. In the center is a giant floppy raccoon that Jason insist I buy Murphy, as he loves floppy toys. Well Rocky is like over 3 feet long, and might be just a little too floppy for Murph. On the right is a water bottle for when we go hiking. It has a valve and a drinking trough attached so it dispenses water right into the trough where Murphy can then drink it up. You know how little boys react when they get clothes for Christmas, that's how excited Murphy was about this gift.

Then my parents brought out their gifts:

Murphy couldn't wait, digging into the bag before my mother could even get the gifts out. He received 2 toys from my parents. A stuffed goose, from the Migrators line that his pheasant and duck come from:

And a new rollaball like toy that dispenses treats. My father found that one - a stroke of genius, as it's all one piece (no valve that he can pull out, chew on and consume) and it's made of semi-pliable latex, so it's nice and quite rolling around on hard surfaces. Check out his waggly tail in the photo below:

Clearly the favourite 4th birthday gift! We celebrated by heading out for a hike, despite the fact that it was pouring rain. My thinking was that we wouldn't get too wet as we'd be under the canopy of the trees. As you can see from the picture below, that didn't work out quite as planned:

But of course Murph isn't all about action, and he did his fair bit of lolling around this summer. One of his favourite places is on top of all our pillows when all the pillowcases are off for washing:

But of course he's not averse to just snoozing on the couch, or curling up on your feet. Check out Murphy's lips on the left hand photo. He's still itching his face a lot despite the continuing allergy diet he's on. In fact his belly broke out a bit this summer, but he only had a total of 7 scabs on his belly as compared to his entire belly being covered in scabs, so it's a major improvement over this time last year.

Ever since Allie's wedding, when an extra bed was set up in my parent's computer room Murphy has decided that he has a new, oversized doggie bed. He'll disappear from the living room just to be found sprawled out on the bed, watching his kingdom below. He much prefers this to the treadmill that used to take up this space.

And here we have a couple of summery cocker pics. To the left we have Murphy hanging out in the summer sun, seated at my parents' patio table. Above we have a sticker I found at Old Navy, featuring a cocker dressed for a Reggae Festival!

Non Murphy related, Jason and I went to Disney World in September. We drove down to Seattle Allie and her Jason in their new home, taking in the sites and enjoying a Mariners' baseball game while we were down there:

Then we flew down to Florida for a week at Disney World. We stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside Resort right on the property. It was a moderately priced resort, by Disney standards, featuring a New Orleans theme. Below is the main lobby and restaurant area, which was also where you could catch a boat to go to Downtown Disney:

And here's the building we stayed in, below. There were more than 30 buildings in our resort alone, but we asked for a room in one of the main, close in buildings. And because we went in peak hurricane season (none of which hit us) we got just what we asked for.

So getting back to animals, the big thing for me on this trip was the Animal Kingdom Park, which was new since I'd last been to Disney World as a teenager. Here are some examples of the animals we saw on the safari ride in the Africa section of Animal Kingdom and at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, a Disney resort right on the Savannah where we had dinner:

 

Now bringing this right back to Murphy, he of course got several Disney gifts. Below you see Murphy sporting a blue gingham collar with a matching leash that I picked up at a Downtown Disney store called Disney Tails:

You'll also notice a pet tag there. It's in the shape of Mickey Mouse, in a complementary blue. That was from Jason. Murph was quite proud of his gifts, and paraded around with his new collar, showing it off:

So that gets us up to date, and gets me ready for the Christmas update, which is sure to follow some time around April, 2005.

Email me!

Meghan

Here's the link to the next update: February 2005
Here's the link to the previous update: June 2004

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