So, two months since the mighty Murph shrugged off his mortal coil and headed towards that great puppy playground in the sky. The wife and I have been missing his dogness. There's just this big black lab hole in our lives, and our home. It's time to bite the bullet and find a new doggy maestro to share our life with.
Murph was a rescue dog. Three years old when we got him, it took him a long time to truly trust that we weren't sending him back. Though once he got the hang of this lovin' stuff he was, what one might term, demanding. We loved him for it. The thump of his very hard head into your knees was the sign for "I need an ear scratch"; lying in front of the couch on his back said "come on, time to play, scratch my tummy"; and grabbing his bowl in his mouth and knocking it on the floor was the sign for "chocolate please, the bowl's empty".
We regretted not having those first three years of his life, and saddened that he took another 3 to truly be himself. We want every second of the next dog's life. Its screwups will be ours, and hopefully they'll be the fun wacky kind. Not the sort that made Murph hit the deck first time I picked up a stick to throw for him. I swear, if I had ever met his previous owners, I would have known what to do with that stick.
So we're puppy hunting. We're close too. Meeting breeders who hopefully will like us and say "yes, of course you can have one of our puppies". We've passed the first stage, the questionnaire and a photo of your garden. We probably sent too many. But now we're off to meet our preferred breeder. So exciting.
I'm sure Murph would approve.
