Here we go with 25 (!) pictures of Murphy and Jason. These were shot from the end of February to the end of April. I can't really explain how much these two adore each other, but hopefully you'll get a glimpse of their mutual adoration through these photos.

Above we have Murphy fooling around with Jason. Notice how relaxed Murphy is, even though Jason has him in the air, sideways, and is biting Murph's ear. That's a testament to how much he trusts Jason, and to how laid back a cocker he is.

Jason and I started taking Murphy out for walks in February, but the two of them didn't really hit it off until Jason and I started studying for midterms together, in the middle of February. That's about the same time Jason and I started to get serious too, but I digress. When Murphy is out on a walk his focus is on sniffing his surroundings, just exploring in general. But get him inside, and his focus is all about people. So Jason didn't really get to see the true Murphy until he started coming over to my apartment. At which point Jason found out just how people focused Murph is, and promptly fell for my dog.

I've tried to keep these photos in chronological order, following Murphy's hair length and Jason's evolving playoff beard and state of injured arm (more on that later), but it still proved a little difficult. So these June updates are kind of organized by both theme and time. I realize that pretty much none of you visitors care about this, only anal retentive Meg does...so really these last few sentences I've typed are only for my future reference. I'll stop talking to myself now. Many of these pictures were taken after Jason and I broke up. We still studied together, and of course Murphy still wanted to see Jason and vice versa, so we continued hanging out together.

Below we have Jason putting Murphy through his paces. Murphy got much better at some of these tricks, especially "Weave" due to Jason's efforts. Jason just likes giving Murphy treats, so he'd make him do a couple of commands, and then he'd give a treat. Then get him to practice catching (with treats), then tell him how cute he was, then give him a treat. I've had to scale back the size of Murphy's meals in response.

 

Above we have "Weave" on the left and "Through" (jumping through Jason's arms) on the right. It was very handy that Jason liked doing these commands with Murphy, as I'd never caught them on film before since I'm always the one doing commands with him.

 

Above we have "Shake a paw on the left and Jason kissing Murphy on the right. Kissing Murphy is a secondary reward for good performance. Treats, of course, being the primary reward.

Above we have Murphy and Jason taking a study break to surf the net. Jason is even worse at procrastinating than I am, and Murphy always gave him a good reason to leave the books for a few minutes to play. You can see on his face how much Murphy enjoyed these time outs from the books. Below we have Murphy and Jason in a more studious mode:

Next we have Jason feeding Murphy from the counter. Great reinforcement of oh so desirable behaviour! You can see in Jason's smile that Murphy wasn't the only one who knew he was breaking the rules. But imagine how much Murphy was enjoying himself at this moment. Not only was he breaking a rule and enjoying one of his favourite foods, a Minigo, I believe, but Jason was taking part in the whole thing! And looking closely at the picture, I think that Jason was in fact scratching Murphy behind the ears as he ate! I don't think he could have reinforced this behaviour any more if he'd tried. Jason reminded me last night that this Minigo was banana flavoured, so Murphy must have been over the moon, as this is was a dairy product flavoured with his favourite fruit. Jason also reminded me that he'd brought this one over especially for Murphy, as he was aware that it was Murphy's favourite flavour.

Murphy loves how much Jason will indulge him, play with him, get right down to his level to wrestle around. Below we have two examples of the two of them wrestling and snuggling.

I especially like the ray of light hitting the two of them in the bottom photo. A heavenly pair these two!

Now we segue into the pictures featuring not only Murphy and Jason, but also Jason's injured arm. Here's the story. Jason and I took Murphy outside for a break while we were studying for our finals. Jason was wearing flip flop sandals. My building manager, Kelly, was outside at this little picnic area that he'd created on the far side of the property. Whenever Kelly saw Murphy he'd call out to him. So when Jason heard "Murphy!" from the other side of the parking lot, of course he took Murphy over to say "Hi", navigating around speed bumps on the road. In fact, Jason ran over. Now this was at night. So far, everything was ok. But the return trip back inside didn't go so smoothly. Jason has never really owned a dog as an adult, so he didn't know that you should never run with a dog with the leash wrapped around your wrist. So we have speed bumps, darkness, flip flops, running, a dog and a leash wrapped around Jason's wrist all coming together at the same time. When Murphy veered right across Jason's path, Jason was jerked right, ran into a speed bump, and took quite a dramatic fall.

Blood was running out of his elbow, his side was all bruised, and I was a little concerned about how he hit his head. When we got him inside, after assuring Kelly that Jason was mobile, we took a look at his arm, and worried for a minute or two that it was broken. But it turned out that he'd just scraped a considerable amount of skin off. We bandaged him up, put a little ice on his elbow to keep the swelling down, and headed back to the books. I think these two pictures were taken the next day, Jason looks far too with it for these to have been taken that night. And I certainly wasn't in the mood to capture anything from that event on film!

A couple of days after the fall Jason and I broke up. For nearly a week we didn't see each other, except at exams of course. But as our final final exam approached we went back to studying together. Murphy was thrilled. During our relationship Murphy came to recognize that our intercom ringing meant Jason was arriving, as Jason was the only person who ever came over (we lived waaay far away from everyone else in our program). Murphy would do this excited happy dance when the intercom rang, jumping in circles and heading for the door. Well after a week of not seeing Jason you should have seen the happy dance he did! In this set of 4 pictures you can see how happy the two of them were to be together again.

  

These photos were, once again, all taken during study breaks when Jason would go and play with Murphy, and I would grab my camera. But just look at the two of them! How could I deny them the fun they had together?

Up next, photos of the two of them playing on the couch while we should have been studying. But Murphy is just so much more fun.

Now below we have a couple more photos showing the two of them playing around. Jason could pose Murphy just about any way he pleased, and Murphy would obey out of blind love.

Of course Murphy would get plenty of affection and scratches in return, so everyone was happy. Just check out the smile on Murphy's face!

So we're down to the last three pictures from Kamloops of Murphy and Jason together. These ones show the two of them snuggling...

 

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...and Murphy getting a little affection. Lucky for Murphy Jason is a very physically affectionate guy, and lucky for Jason Murphy is a very affection needy dog. So this sort of scene happened quite frequently.

Unbelievably, I'm done this massive update! It's taken me all day, with a 2 hour long lunch break, but it's done. My only problem is that the more of these pictures I get posted the closer I am to having to start studying. And, really, who wants to study when they can play around on the computer?

Next update coming soon! It will feature Easter, our last few days in Kamloops, and moving home.

Email me!

Meghan

Here's the link to the next update: June 21, 2003
Here's the link to the previous update: June 4, 2003

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