As the long summer days roll on and families squeeze in last-minute vacations, yours portly is resorting to an old chestnut with an extremely niche audience: Bull Terrier Tuesday.
If you want to know about my dog, the nine-year old bull terrier Murphy, keep reading. If you’d rather not know about my adorable, stubborn old girl, feel free to read some of my other posts to tide you over until the real substantive content returns.
One year ago today was the eve of my picking up Murphy, my now-nine-year-old female bull terrier. I had no—well, little—idea of what to expect, but rereading this post, I can see how excited I was.
Murphy has turned out to be the perfect dog for me. She is house-trained and loving, and pretty much likes to eat and take long naps. Naturally, we’re a perfect fit for each other.
She is also stubborn—a trait of the breed—and likes to do things her way, but she knows who the boss is, even if the boss is a bit of a sucker and a softy.
It’s been a good year with my old girl, and I’m praying for many more.
With that, here is 21 July 2021’s “Big News: TPP is Going to the Dogs“:
Seeing as yesterday was my dog’s birthday, I figured I’d throw back to a piece that I seem to come back to each June, “Hungry Like the Wolf.” Tech magazine Gizmodo ran a piece some years ago that poses the question (in its title) “What Happens to Wolves When They’re Raised Like Dogs?”
My thinking on dogs has done nearly a 180-degree turn—maybe a 150-degree turn?—over the past few years. I’ve always liked dogs (so I was already thirty degrees in their favor), but I disliked dog people. I still would not classify myself in that way, though I do serenade my dog, so maybe I’m just in denial.
Regardless, what chapped me was the way people would use dogs as surrogate children, or would invest huge amounts of their personal identity in their dog. Again, perhaps I’m in denial, or blind to reality, but as much as I love my dog, I’d like to think I’m not pouring misdirected paternalism into her.
But dogs do provide wonderful companionship, and can be a great deal of fun. Murphy does something comical or amusing just about every day. And her adenoidal snoring and “talking” crack me up. I actually sleep better when Murphy is snoring her brains out—she’s like a living white-noise machine.
Pretty crazy these chunky furballs used to be wolves, eh?
Here’s 24 June 2021’s “TBT: Hungry Like the Wolf“:
Today my dog Murphy turns nine-years old. According to the records I have from The Bull Terrier Rescue Mission, she was born 15 June 2013, which is a pretty easy date to remember.
Last summer I suddenly, inexplicably went a bit dog crazy. I was not looking for a bull terrier at all, but stumbled upon one on at Petfinder. I spoke with a representative from BTRM, and we realized that that particular dog would not be a good fit for me due to his advanced age and delicate health issues.
She put my information into their database and said it might be a few months before a dog came available in my area. One week later, while moving a then-girlfriend to Athens, Georgia, I got a call from BTRM asking me to foster an older girl who was good with children and other dogs.
About ten days later, I had Murphy.
It’s Halloween Week! Besides Christmas (and probably Spring Break), it’s quite possibly my favorite week of the year.
It’s also the week of my third annual (and second on the front porch) Spooktacular! As such, I spent a good portion of the weekend making the preliminary preparations for having lots of people sitting on my front lawn for a couple of hours or so.
Among the myriad tasks I completed (such as some long overdue weed eating, and applying more ant bait to the lawn), I engaged in my favorite Halloween season ritual: carving a Jack O’Lantern! I picked up a couple of massive pumpkins from Sam’s Club for $7 each, and this one made for particularly attractive gourd. Just look at its perfectly jaunty, stout stem!
I’m currently cutting back on my calories and have so far dropped around ten pounds in the past two weeks. I’d let myself get comfortable and complacent after a long, lazy summer. Sure, I’ll loosen up a bit—both my calorie restrictions and my pants—for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but I’ve been doing pretty well regulating my daily intake. It had grown, quite frankly, massive.
I mentioned this latest of my various weight loss odysseys to my neighbor, the man who takes Murphy out for me and—more germane to this post—who is the Zone Captain for our Neighborhood Watch. My adventures in dropping unsightly pounds and inches inspired him to propose the Lamar Neighborhood Watch establish small walking groups, and yesterday morning, he and I met shortly after 6 AM to walk a short circuit downtown.
Well, it’s finally happened: pending some signatures and initials from folks at The Bull Terrier Rescue Mission (at the time of this writing; they will likely be immortalized in digital ink by the time you read these words), I have officially adopted Murphy.
It’s been quite an adventure since I picked her up at the Sam’s Club in Goldsboro, North Carolina on 22 July 2021. Since then, she’s been all over the I-20 Corridor in South Carolina, and all the way to Athens, Georgia. She’s spent a great deal of time sleeping on couches—those on which she is allowed, and those from which she is forbidden—and she seems to win fans wherever she goes.
After a long and eventful weekend, Murphy and I are back in Lamar with an additional guest: my childhood friend’s eight-year old blue heeler mix Gracie. My buddy is going to the beach with his wife and kid, and needed a place along the way to drop their pup.
As such, I’m now running an assisted care facility for elderly dogs. In all seriousness, the dog, Gracie, is a real sweetheart, and she and Murphy seem to get along well enough. Murphy quickly established dominance once we got back to the house the other day, but then I put Murphy on her back to remind her who is really in charge, and it’s been relative peace in the house ever since.
The friendship rolls on this Sunday, as I continue to look back at past editions of Supporting Friends Friday (read last week’s here). Introducing the (nearly) weekly feature has been a real joy, and it’s quickly become one of my favorite of my regularly recurring series.
The three installments featured this Sunday are a bit of a mixed-bag, unlike last week’s heavily musical selection. We’ve got a professor and her book of poetry; an organization dedicated to helping bull terriers; and another musician buddy of mine:
Well, that’s it for another Lazy Sunday. Thank you for being a friend!
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
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