It's Murphy's Birthday

Murphy's been in our family for almost two years now. He was born on Nov. 7th, 2022 and we went to pick him up new years day, 2023.

Here is the first picture we ever took of him.

We moved to our current house about three years ago, dogless. The family dogs moved up to Washington with the kids mom, and that was fine with me. Shortly after moving we got a cat. And shortly after that the kids living with me started asking if we could get a dog :/

I was not opposed to a new dog, we just had to fence in our yard before we could get one. As soon as I told the kids that one of them said, "not an old dog this time dad, can we get a puppy!?"

I love rescue dogs. In fact our last two dogs were rescues and both were amazing! Problem is (at least for the kids) the life span of rescues is usually shorter than a puppy. We had those two dogs for about three years each before they passed away.

So the puppy request was valid and I agreed to it. It was the fall of our first year here that we finally got a fence up enclosing the back yard. As soon as the last board was nailed in the fence my 15 year old was showing me puppies for sale xD

This particular kid is very impulsive, and every puppy he showed me was the one we had to have!

I, on the other hand, am methodical about choosing something that will be in our family for a long time, like a pet. So I would dig into each ad and usually find something that was not quite right about each animal. I was not being difficult on purpose, just being cautious I guess.

It was over the Winter break, New Years Eve day to be exact, when we found Murphy. The whole family was at the house, including the kids mom, so the 15 year old and his mom set out on an internet blitzkrieg to find a dog 🤣

The ex must have messaged a dozen ads before she hit on Murphy. He was second to last in a litter, and the lady who had him was ready to move him on. So we made a deal over the phone that evening and on new years day, 2023 we met her at an outlet mall halfway between her house and ours, to get Murphy.