"Ice Castles"
It was necessary for me to make the decision
for her. It was not an easy one.
I received this beautiful tribute
from our friends Max and Anne.
Thank you so much for remembering her.
The have also put both dogs
on their special remembrance page.
I left a memorial for Murphy at
Murphy suffered from many problems due to her cushings.
Her heart and kidneys were failing and I
did what I felt was the kindest thing
to make her free of pain.
I hope she forgives me.
I am still unable to bring myself to
redo her website but you can read about
her below if you like.
I had Murphy cremated so she could
be with us all the time. This picture
shows her urn and her little memorial area
I set up for her. I also bought
a stuffed black dog for her collar
and have a picture of it too.
Lucy likes the stuffed dog
better than she liked Murphy.
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Madison comes up and sniffs the collar and
kisses the stuffed dog.
He aged a hundred years
since she left us.
Madison passed over on 2/29/04
to my complete disbelief,
only 7 weeks after Murphy left me.
I am not sure I will ever be ready
to redo Murphy's page.
This is Murphy. This
is the day
I brought her home from the no-kill animal shelter.
There were only two girls there at the time.
They showed me a little brown dog first.
As a volunteer today, I understand why
they pushed this one at me first, because
she was a favorite and had been there for a while.
She actually would have been a perfect choice
for me too, since I walked into the shelter
that day with the name "Murphy" looking
for a puppy to give it too.
I got it from Murphy Brown too.
But for some reason I wanted to see
the little black one.
She was from a litter of 11 and was the
last
one left. She was hiding at the back
of the cage and when they handed
her to me
she hung on and hid her head and wouldn't let go.
So I ended up with Murphy Black instead.
The other little dog was gone when
I came back to volunteer the following month,
so she got a home too.
I could let
go of Murphy with my hands and she
still hung there.
We laughingly call them "puppy pins".
So we
went home together that day.
This is a another picture of her the first day.
I had absolutely no knowledge of how to raise
As with all puppies, she would play really
hard and then just drop down and sleep.
or train a puppy. Mom always did it.
She was difficult to train and I sometimes wondered
if I had been out of my mind to bring her home
but I couldn't take her back.
She was very stubborn as the pictures below may show you.
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She chewed on the bottom of my couch, a chair,
she chewed on the wall next to her crate,
she ate some of my stuffed animals,
got into the garbage and the biggest
horror was the
"eating of the livingroom carpet".
You see labs are
chewers, and Murphy is part lab.
Since I was volunteering at the
shelter now and saw
too many animals dumped when people should have
been
working with them instead,
I couldn't return her as my mother suggested.
Besides, she was my baby, my kid.
You don't
throw out your kid for doing something bad
(or at least you shouldn't).
In time she started to learn. We went to puppy
classes.
And here is one of my favorite pictures of her.
Murphy was diagnosed with Cushing's Disease. You can read more about She also had thyroid problems In the summer of 2003 we finally stopped Now she is with my dad again.
I also learned too. We didn't know her real birthday,
so estimating when she was born,
we made her birthday 6/30/90.
This picture was taken at Christmas,
2003 at 13 1/2 years old.
She was really showing her age
and just slept most of the time.
It pains me to think how sick she was.
She had basically stopped eeating
even though I tried cooking her chicken and rice.
She was suspected through a normal exam and urine test.
Cushings by going HERE.
and was on medication for that too and
also for her heart condition.
giving her all her medications except the ones
for her heart. She had chronic diarahhea
and I felt so bad for her.
When she stopped eating very much I couldn't
even get her medicines to stay down so
she started to retain more fluids.
I know she was very uncomfortable and sick at that point.
It suddenly didn't seem fair to keep doing
that to her. So on January 9, 2004 we went to the doctor
to see what else could be offered to her and we all agreed
it just wasn't fair any more. Her eyes told me
it was time to go.
I stayed with her when it was done.
It was very hard but I am glad that I did.
The staff was very kind and let me
spend some time with her after it was done.
I will always question what I did to her,
keeping her on all the medications,
whether I should have stopped them sooner,
whether it was the right time to let her go.
The "what ifs" are quite endless.
I guess it is something we all go through.
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Also, please take a moment to sign my guestbook. Thanks.
