Murphy's Newsletter

April 9, 2001 

Hello Everyone!

This update is going to cover two things:

1) Murphy's progress with water
2) Murphy's reunion with Adam

And I should appologize. My pictures that go with this update are still in my camera, so the photos are just generic ones of Murph at home. But the good thing about these photos is that they capture the way Murphy really looks with his long spaniel ears and nose.

So, for #1. Murphy is now very enthusiastic about getting into water, despite me nearly drowning him two weekends ago. I took him down to that same area that I described in the last update, but we climbed down there further along the creek. I had intended to just walk down to the creek, let Murphy get a sip of water, and then head back up. But I lost my balance and had to jump up over a log, across a small stream of water and onto this rocky area that sits in the middle of the creek. Murphy immediately followed.

Once there I figured we ought to explore a bit, so Murphy and I wandered around on the rocks (this is a big area, with bushes, sand etc.). We looked around for at least 15 minutes, and I got Murphy to walk across little streams. Then I turned us around to head back up to the trail. Unfortunately it wasn't as easy getting off the rocks as it had been falling down onto them. I looked around and figured that we could walk across some fallen trees to get across the water and back onto the bank. I was hoping that Murphy would follow me, even though he'd never had to walk across something in mid air before. So I hopped up onto the nearest tree, jumped over to the next one and called Murph. Murphy hesitated, but then jumped up onto the first tree. I encouraged him to jump across to the next one. He tried to jump across, but slipped between the two trees and fell straight down into the water, completely submerging himself. He came up within a second of falling in, but then turned around, hopped over the first tree back onto the rocks and gave me a look like; "That's it! I tried! Now I'm not moving!"

I agreed with him, and ended up picking him up and wading across the stream to get us back to the trail. Murphy seemed almost pleased that, as a result, my feet and calves were completely soaked.

So I was terrified that the dunking would scar him for life and make him never want to go into the water again. But it seems to have had the opposite effect: now he heads straight down to any water he spots, and wades right in. During the last week, every day has taken him further into the water. He'll now go in right up to his belly. Then he freezes and just stands there for a while, listening to me praise him. Swimming is next!

Now onto #2. Adam arrived in Vancouver yesterday, at 2pm. Murphy started wiggling madly before we even got him out of his crate, and he really hasn't stopped since. Not only does he remember Adam, but I think he thinks that Ad is his father/alpha male. Murphy has taken every opportunity to sit on Adam, lick Adam and just generally be near Adam. I'm now feeling really badly that Murphy doesn't get to see Adam more often. The only problem with all this is that Ad isn't nearly as fond of lap sitting, kisses giving dogs as Murphy is of being that kind of dog. Adam is used to labs, and sedate ones at that. So all the affection is becoming really annoying to Ad. I'm hoping that Murphy will calm down a bit as Adam's visit progresses.

Email me!

Meghan

Here's the link to the next update: July 17, 2001
Here's the link to the previous update: March 28, 2001

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