This is Murphy. Murphy the Mutt. We got her from a shelter in February 2006. Murphy was my first dog. My very first pet. I was 48 years old. That is kind of sad. In a pathetic sort of way.I remember walking into the room that looked like a prison corridor in the movies, rows of cells with bars along one side. All the dogs were barking, except one. She just sat there, looking at us with veiled curiosity. Two days later we brought her home. The old farm house was still being renovated, and we slept on the floor in the living room while as-yet-nameless dog wandered the house looking for an escape route. I was afraid she might attack and eat me in my sleep. Did I mention that she was my first pet, and that I knew absolutely nothing about dogs?
I still don't know much about dogs, but I know that this particular dog and I are very much alike. We share some deep structure of soul or life experience, and when she dies a piece of me will go with her to lie in the ground behind the old barn.
You could say that Murphy has trust issues. She approaches visitors, nudges them and sticks her long nose under the palms of their hands, encouraging contact. However, when the hapless visitors respond by stroking her head, she snaps at them. She does this almost without fail, somehow afraid of her need of affection, embarrassed at having let herself go for that brief moment and shown that she too wants to be loved. A minute later she is back, poking the visitor with her nose, as if nothing had happened, and the scene is repeated.
Two or three times she has had to spend a few days in a dog hotel. (They are no longer called kennels, they are now almost always "pet retreats" or something like that). Again, she sat quietly in her cell, while the other dogs barked and ran around their small space. When I went to pick her up, expecting some sign of joy, a wag perhaps, a sloppy kiss, she did not oblige. She just looked at me, as if to say, "Oh, you have come for me? I didn't think you'd be back." And then we went home.
Murphy also has health issues. First, there was mammary gland cancer, which required major surgery. Then, on New Year's Eve 2009/10 she came down with Peripheral Vestibular Syndrome. For a month she was unable to walk. Her vertigo was so bad that as soon as she tried to stand up, she crashed to the floor. Her head was tilted at a 45 degree angle. We depleted the local pharmacy's stock of Gravol pills. Very slowly she learned to walk again, at first creeping along the walls to traverse a room, listing like a ship about to sink, with the world obviously spinning around her. Eventually, the vertigo subsided, and she gets around again, not very fast and not very well, but sufficiently well.
Her thyroid is non-functioning, she has hip dysplasia, and I take her out at 3 am, because her bladder is weak. Sometimes she can't get up from her mat without help. Often she falls down, because her legs seem to have a mind of their own, not always following orders to "stand," "turn," "support 60 pound dog." She groans a little when I pull her up by the collar, inadvertently putting a choke-hold on her; I try to make it up to her with treats.
Murpherle still doesn't bark, unless the cat leaps on her from a chair or table and upends her. Despite her no-longer-limber limbs, her brakes continue to work well. When she spots a bit of horse poop--the most delicious treat on earth!!--it takes all my strength to pull her away. Clearly, we share a stubborn streak.
She used to sleep beside my bed, and I loved waking up to her gentle snoring. She has long been unable to climb stairs, and now I sometimes sleep beside her bed. She has come to this place to teach me something about life and love, and loss. I'm not sure what it is. What I am sure of is that she and I have been to some of the same existential places, that we know things about one another no one else knows.
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