To My Teacher, My Best Friend,
My Canine Son and My Soul Mate …
Murphy, you weren’t just my first dog, Freestyle and Agility partner, nor just your Daddy’s Frisbee and Madden partner, nor just Aunty Mary’s walking partner, nor just Cousin Sammy’s snuggle buddy, nor just Grandma’s favorite – you were our pride and joy!
You brought smiles to our faces and to almost everyone that met you – especially kids, with your pricked ears and cute, ticked face – and even our elderly neighbors liked to watch you and Cherokee play … you made us “The Happy Dog Parents” of the neighborhood!
Even though everyone thought I was crazy for bringing you home (even me at times), not a single one will deny that you were exactly what we all needed. Someone to love, teach and cherish – someone to tell stories about and talk to – someone amazing to come home to after a long day – someone to enjoy life with!
As we did have a rough start and your variety of inappropriate traits kept my family wondering (works in progress as I looked at them … BC are herders of more things than just sheep as we now know), you never failed to teach us something new. Whether it be a new training opportunity, meeting a new face or just a friendly game. Any flaws were well masked by your enormous vocabulary (>150 words including commands and object names) and desire to do long routines of tricks just for the toss of a toy or a pea size treat!
Murphy, you are greatly missed by oh so many, even Aunty Cole, whose house we saw you shine for one of the last times (when you took Ruggles’ old toys and swapped them with the new toys from his Birthday Bag that he didn’t even know he had).
We (well, mostly I) miss you barking when the water boils, keeping an eye on the neighbors and running happily to your bed at night. We miss you giving yourself timeouts, accepting your canine sister’s corrections, and huffing when she’d keep breaking her “wait”. We miss you making friends with dogs whose communications skills were a bit unique (Paige’s over exaggerated movements and Andre’s body slamming into walls), and we miss you trying to herd all of the dogs in class – who will keep everyone in line now.
But most of all, we miss your outgoing personality, your incredible intelligence, your goofy games, the touch of your soft fur and your unforgettable presence.
I’m so sorry we couldn’t do more for you – if only you could have told us something was wrong inside before it was too late. If only I could have better read the minor signs you were giving that everything wasn’t okay.
We now believe that you were extra snuggley those few weeks because you were hurting, and were too tough to show us any other way … you ran agility just a month before passing and even attended class the day before you showed signs of having a bad case of pneumonia – you wouldn’t let me leave without you and go to class alone that day, even though I made you take it easy since we thought you had diabetes insipidus.
How could you be so strong, only asking for an extra belly rub when something evil was spreading inside … perhaps it was your way of saving us, cutting down the length of suffering – if we sooner realized you had cancer, we may not have gotten that Clean Run, nor visited Aunty Cole for Thanksgiving, nor attended classes in December. We probably would have forced you to rest and relax – and that just wasn’t your spirit.
We would have all suffered longer, you would have undergone more testing and probing and maybe even surgery, you would have spent more days away from home and from those whom you loved – you may have still fallen fast since it was traveling so fast.
Thank you for all of the great memories – though we so wish there were more. We know that you are now released of physical pain and our emotional suffering is just a small price to pay – as you truly are the best thing to ever happen to our family and to me!
Thank you for teaching me the finer things in life – friends, family and play!
Forever in my Heart,
| Murphy |
| 23, Dec 2006 |
| Danielle Buchbinder |