I said I wouldn't comment anymore about the prolonged lulls between updates, but this one has to be prefaced with a note - I've been badgered into doing this update by family members, online cocker friends, and even co-workers. So, everyone, here it is!

Above we have Murphy helping out in the garden. For my birthday my parents got me new grass, which doesn't sound all that exciting, but 1) was my request because 2) it makes such a world of difference to the appearance of my yard. Turns out that the yard was covered in 90% moss, as opposed to grass, so over the winter when the moss died I was left with a muddy field for a yard.

My birthday was in March, but we had to wait for nicer/warmer weather to lay down the sod, so come April down it went! We also put in an edging of cedar mulch, both for decorative interest and as a place for Murphy to pee. I'd picked up a tip online that since dogs' urine kills grass the best thing to do is lay down cedar mulch - it won't die and it absorbs odour. Once a year you scoop it out and put down new mulch. You can see the mulch to the left of Murphy above. That little area has essentially become Murphy's toilet, and he's learning to go there every time.

Oh, and if you think that Murphy just naturally posed perfectly with the flowers, here's what he was doing when it struck me that this would make for a good picture:

He just has to get his little nose into everything.

Oh, and unbeknownst to me, the gardener that is employed by my building had just put down grass seed over my whole yard! So we went to all this work (really, it was quite easy, only about 90 minutes to do about half the yard before we ran out of sod) just to have the gardener tell me the following Friday that he'd already done the entire yard.

So not only does Murphy love his yard (he immediately had to jump up and wander all over that fresh sod), but he loves gazing out at it. And he hasn't grown tired of the window seat yet:

Notice that I've put his blanket down on the seat. I've just accepted that this isn't in fact my window seat, but Murphy's top of the line dog bed. And those pillows he's on aren't usually pure white - the covers had been taken off to wash them. Below you can see them in detail:

They're covered in little bees! Despite bees being my only irrational phobia when they're printed on something I find them charming. And for a window seat (I mean dog bed) overlooking a garden I find them very apropos. Murphy definitely approves, as he sinks into them just like this on a daily basis. If he's not laying on top of the pillows, he finds a way to get underneath them:

But although he poses well when you catch him like this, the moment you're done up he pops:

The four window seat pictures shown above clearly aren't in chronological order, as you might have noticed by the alternating lengths of Murphy's hair. The one above was taken about a week ago, right after getting a good summer trimming. Such freedom to only have to brush him once every 5 days or so!

It's not only the window seat where he'll sink into pillows. To your left we have what Murphy does every laundry day - snuggle into the pile of pillows that are having their covers washed. When he's really lucky I'll have piled the pillows on top of my duvet. Then he looks like the little princess with the pea.

Speaking of royalty, below we have a new item I bought for Murphy. I'd found it totally by accident while browsing Winners, a discount store that sells everything from clothes to bags to toys to towels to vases to cutlery, and just about anything else you can think of. In the US it's called TJ Max, for any of you Americans. Unfortunately I live just around the corner from a Winners, and as their motto is "It's a New Store Every Week" (they get cast off stuff from stores around the country every week) I feel compelled to stop in at least that frequently. But they have such cute stuff! Recently I've bought towels with gross grain ribbon, decorative gravel for a centerpiece and a purse. And this towel for Murphy:

How adorable is that? The company that makes these, Koo Koo, is a local Vancouver one, and they come in all sorts of designs. I'd thought about buying Murphy a big bath towel with a dog caricature on it last Christmas, but they were asking $30 for it at a pet store. Even I have trouble justifying paying that for a dog's towel. I'm guessing this one was at Winners as Koo Koo must be discontinuing it - it's not on Koo Koo's website. So I got it for like $6...not bad for his muddy paws. And I get a giggle every time I use it. Murphy thinks he should use it for stuff other than his muddy paws, as you can see to your right. Sometimes he'll pose no problem, other times he just wants to play.

Recently we had our first overnight visitor - Allie! She stopped over on a return trip to Calgary, so I had to make up my little Hide-A-Bed for her. But of course Murphy thought it was there for him, and jumped right in:

I'd left the room to go do something else, and then Murphy disappeared. I tracked him down to this room, lying there in the dark all by himself. He clearly thought that I'd created a sixth place for him to snuggle in the condo. Once I spotted him in there he went to this stance - leg open, belly up. "What, this bed isn't for me?". He was positively devastated when I chased him out so that Allie would have only a minimal amount of dog fur on her pillows.

Oh, and he's still trying to lie on the back of the couch, as featured in the December 2005 update. I chastise him heavily when I catch him up there, but if I'm in the den on the computer sometimes I'll go an hour without checking up on him. And sure enough, there he is on the back of the couch. As I feared the pillows are indeed getting all squished down, as you can see from the indent created by his weight in the picture below:

So when Murphy isn't cuddled up on my bed, his bed, the couch or the window seat, he's often found scratching his allergic face on the furniture. His belly has been great this year so far - I've only seen 2 scabs on it, which is a massive improvement. But his face is still itchy. So he's taken to using the furniture as scratching posts. I try to keep him from rubbing up against the couch or window seat, as the upholstery will stain and wear, so I figure the coffee table should be fair game:

This picture really shows him doing a hybrid between a scratch and a chin-lean. But see his eyes? Clearly he's getting some sort of relief from the scratching!

Okay, that's a good place to stop, but I'm going to get right to creating 2 more updates - one featuring family, and one for the new park we've discovered.

Email me!

Meghan

Here's the link to the next update: Spring 2006
Here's the link to the previous update: December 2005

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