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Murphy's Newsletter Sept 6, 2001 Hello All!
 I've been trying for awhile now to get a good picture of Murphy in tall grass and flowers, and this is my most successful attempt yet. It took several minutes for me and Heidi to get him posed properly, but it turned out pretty well. There were actually way more flowers there than you can see here, I guess they just aren't as photogenic as Murphy!
 In other antics...we have Murphy with his new found obsession...popsicles! Allie made the mistake of giving Murphy one to try, and then he just fell in love with them, so every time I'd have a popsicle, I'd have to give Murphy one too. Here he's sitting in his wading pool (there's a couple of inches of water in it, you can kind of make that out in the upper left corner of the picture) with his favourite popsicle of all, the blue ones. Murphy can lick down a popsicle just as fast as a human, another feat to add to his list!
Here we have two photos with the same theme: Murphy woken up by the camera flash. In the left hand one he was sleeping quite peacefully on my couch, I believe this was the second photo I took, so he had just opened his eyes. The photo on the right looks posed, but wasn't; Murphy was happily snoozing with his duckie (which he finally tore a hole in. Over a month without destroying a toy, that's a record!). For our final photo we have Murphy kissing
Allie, a picture reminiscent of one of the very first pictures
I took of Allie
and Murphy together, back in November of 2000. We purposely
took this one to closely mimic that first one, as a sort of time
lapse effect, to see how much Murph had changed. In other news, Murphy is making real progress with kids. I've been trying to get him out where kids are, to expose him to them more. Unfortunately the boys in our neighbourhood are quite loud, and they're always on big bikes, so that puts Murphy off quite a bit. So we just sit and watch them, and Murphy gets treats for sitting quietly and occasional making eye contact with some of them. I've taken Murphy down to Stanley Park a couple times, and along West 4th and Lonsdale, in an attempt to run into kids and their parents. Each time we've met two or three kids, and I'd get them to pet Murph, or give him a treat. I've discovered that Murph is reading their apprehension, which makes him nervous, which makes the kids nervous, and so on. The best interactions are with kids who just matter of factly walk up to him and pet him, without even asking me. That's certainly not the best lesson for the kid, and their parents usually get mad at them (understandably) but surprise attacks don't give Murphy the chance to get scared, and he just sort of submits to the kid. Needless to say, the whole kid thing is my focus right now. Murph's been missing out on off leash romps, but it's going to pay off in the long run. In health news I've switched Murphy back to Nutro Chicken and Rice from California Naturals. I believe the flax seed oil in California Naturals wasn't agreeing with him, and frankly I got sick of the mess I was having to pick up after him, so after trying for a month we made the switch back. He's doing great now, so we might have finally found his food! Also, I've managed to put a few more pounds on him (36 pounds, that's um, a couple too many, so now I'm slowing down on the food) and stop his nighttime vomiting. I came across some vet books at Indigo that suggested that it might be because his stomach is empty overnight, leading him to vomit bile. So now I'm feeding him at 8-10 am and 8-10 pm, with lots of treats at noon and in the evening. He hasn't thrown up in the middle of the night once since I started doing this! So that's it for now. I'm really busy with work on my father's website, so I won't ramble on any longer. I haven't taken many photos recently, but we're headed to the AIDS Walk on the 23rd, and I'm going to take my camera, so expect lots of pictures of Stanley Park, seawall, crowds and festivities filling the next update. Meghan Here's the link to the next update: Oct 16, 2001 Home | Latest news | From the beginning | Origins | What kind of dog is that? | Colours of cockers | Cocker links |
So, as promised,
here are the photos from the very easy hike Murphy, Heidi and
I did in August. It was more of a walk with mud and trees than
a hike, but it was a nice way to spend a Thursday evening. Heidi
was kind enough to take this picture of me and Murph. I just
realised that I look incredibly lazy in this picture; Murphy
is wearing a backpack and I'm not. I just took it off to get
my camera out of it; I swear I don't make Murphy lug everything
around on his back. You can't see it in the photo, but we're
right next to either Goldie or Flower Lake, the two lakes we
walked around that evening. Personally, I'd classify them as
ponds, but very picturesque ones, with lillypads and wild flowers
all over the place. Very quaint. Allie was up there about a week
later, and saw a bunch of skinny dippers, but we weren't so lucky.
As I stated in the last
update, Murphy doesn't mind his backpack at all. I think he got
used to my hijinks as a puppy, what with having to wear a seat
belt and sport boots, so he just puts up with my antics now.
Here he's wading in a little stream that crossed our path. Murphy
cannot go over any body of water, he insists on going through
it, and having a sip of water while doing so. Conveniently, his
backpack floats, so the stuff inside barely gets wet. Note that
his ears float up as well. Since this was his first outing with
the backpack, he wasn't carrying all that much, just some food,
a collapsible water bowl, some bags and a plastic container to
pack out his poop, his sport boots, in case he hurt his paw,
and a few basic first aid supplies. That sounds like a lot, but
his pack only weighed a couple of pounds.
And
here's Murphy with Heidi at the end of our "hike",
and Murphy giving Heidi a kiss. As you can see, we're at the
top of Seymour mountain, the mountain we live at the base of.
It takes about 10 minutes to drive to this point from home, and
only that long because of all the twisty points in the road up
to the top. In the background of the picture you can see the
suburbs of Vancouver, that's Port Moody/Coquitlam/Port Coquitlam
behind the chair. We could see past the Port Man bridge, all
the way to Surrey and beyond.
