March 23, 2001

Hello Everyone!

I spent last night's walk taking all sorts of pictures of Murphy in Inter-River Park so that I could show you where he and I spend at least an hour every day. So we have mostly action, forest set photos.

But first, here's a photo of Murphy sleeping in his favourite sleeping position. In fact he will try to push me over so that he'll have the room to flop out on his back. Supposedly only very secure dogs will sleep like this, but I think it might also be a cocker thing; I've found 2 other Cockers on the web sleeping like this.

Sort of park related is how well Murphy now heels (while on his Halti). Check out his focused gaze! One day when we were waiting to cross the street, Murphy was sitting just like this, patiently waiting for my signal to walk. A woman was watching us from the other side of the street. When the light changed and we met up with her in the middle of the cross walk she said "What a well trained dog!"

I was in the best mood for the rest of the day. All my work with Murphy was paying off!

But get him out of his Halti and he pulls and doesn't look back. Oh well.

Now on to the park! This is the way we enter Inter River Park everyday (unless we drive there). To the right of the picture is what used to be the dump for the North Shore - it's closed now, and they're turning it into a park. It's huge! You can't see over it from the river. It's staggering to think of all the garbage buried there. In the distance you can just make out one of the local ski resorts. Just behind where I stood to take this picture is an equestrian centre. Murphy is obsessed with their horses. Every day he freezes and watches them until I go over to him, lift his front paws off the ground and hurl him forward. But he doesn't seem to like horses when they are close up to him. He seems confused, and then he barks. I'm trying to teach him to get out of the way and sit when he sees horses (and cyclists, and joggers...) but that's going to take a while. Now, let's continue down the path...

This is Lynn Creek, the creek that runs through the park. This is the same creek that the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge crosses. I took these pictures about 45 minutes prior to sunset, so the creek looks sort of rundown here, but it's actually quite picturesque. That yellow spot in the upper right corner is a dog and its owner. That's one of the places where Murphy likes to go to "wet his whistle". When we get a big rain all those rocks get covered by the water, and the kayakers come out. I took this picture from a pedestrian bridge that crosses the creek and links up to trails through the forest.

Then we head down the trails. This trail can take you all the way down to Main Street, and if you walk along that for a while you can meet up with the trail again and head all the way down to the harbour. I love this trail because:
1)You are never too far away from other people.
2)But you are also not bothered by crowds.
3)There is forest around you, but not endless forest. You feel like you are in the wilderness, but in reality there are houses on one side of you and the creek on the other. Feels safer.
4)Murphy gets to meet lots of dogs, but everyone keeps moving.
5)The trail is well maintained and never too muddy.
6)It's nice and level.On weekends I like more challenging hikes, but when I only have my lunch hour I don't want to exhaust myself.

Murphy likes this trail because:
1)He gets to run in and out of the bushes. Murphy, when we are walking "away" from home, never walks in a straight line. I assume that this is bred into him for hunting. He crosses back and forth across my path. The minute I turn around he picks up the pace and heads straight for home.
2)There is lots of wood to eat (and throw up later, usually around 5 am, on my bed).
3)He gets to run along the path with other dogs. And in and out of the woods with them.
4)There are lots of good scents to follow.
5)He can "not hear me" and wait 'til I whistle for him. Then he comes running.

Here we are at one of our designated drinking points along the trail. This is in a depression that sits right along the creek. There's a sandy area, a bunch of trees and several spots to drink from. We go down here every day. I tell Murph to "Go wet your whistle" and he goes down ahead of me for a drink. He's getting braver, and will put all 4 paws in the water. But he looks mystified when he sees the bigger dogs wade in right up past their thighs.

This is such a nice little pit stop that you are never alone here for long. Here Murphy is meeting a very friendly Lab (since we've just started walking the trail in the evening, I don't know the dogs' names yet). He's getting much less timid, as you can see. Right after this picture was taken 2 more labs came running down fighting over a branch. Murphy wasn't quite so brave then. But he did eventually go up to them to be sniffed!

At this point yesterday we turned around. The next big feature of the trail is a big open *muddy* field, and I didn't feel like having to rinse Murphy off. Plus Murphy insists on drinking from the mud puddles, and that's just gross. So we backtracked, Murphy jumped right in front of a jogger, then in front of a cyclist (they were both amused, thank God), crossed back over the bridge and headed up the trail.

This is our other designated drinking spot. This is the same spot as the one in the first picture of the creek (above). I wanted to get a picture of Murphy with the little rapids in the background, but he was heeling so well that every time I moved, he'd follow and stand right next to me. Eventually I threw the tennis ball in so that he would move towards the water, praying that he wouldn't try to swim after it. And voila! Murphy did wade in a bit, once I was right next to him, but I had to go across the boulders to retrieve the ball. Once it's warm enough for me to wear shorts, we're going to work on learning to swim!

So that's it for now, but I just bought 5 new rolls of film, so it won't be long 'til the next update comes out!

Email me!

Meghan

Here's the link to the next update: March 28, 2001
Here's the link to the previous update: March 21, 2001