As I type, Murphy licks the leftover milk from my Cheerios out of my Russel Wright Casual China deep soup bowl. (Let's face it, the cereal bowls might be fine for children, but after a Body Pump class? Daddy needs a little more oaty goodness.) He ignores his own food, which has been sitting in his bowl since before I left for class. He moves over to Angus' old bed, lies on top of the IKEA "Ludde" sheepskin and stares at me. I ask him, "Why aren't you eating your breakfast, Goofball?" Maybe he wants a more glamorous dog dish. Maybe he wants his own dog dish, not the one haunted by Angus' voracious spirit. Angus would never let a morsel of food, no matter how small, sit there. He'd pounce on it with a ravenous glee, slurp it up, and jerk his head high, expecting more. Murphy, by contrast, looks at food and says, "Meh. Maybe later."
I try to recall Angus when he was younger. I adopted him at age six, but he still had vim and vigor (or was that, piss and vinegar?). He had the same whirling dervish energy that Murphy has, but not the agility. Angus also had Murphy's train wreck momentum -- a kind of forward impetus that was difficult to stop, and resulted in many cartoon-style collisions with trees, fence posts, and people. Yesterday, Murphy careened into another dog at the park. His attempt to stop resulted in a flip over the back of the other dog and a 10-foot flight through the air. All the other dog owners applauded when Murphy bounced back up, in much the same way Olympic crowds cheer for a spunky Romanian gymnast who doesn't stick the landing but looks cute in pigtails.
I try not to compare Murphy with Angus, but it's inevitable. The breed qualities I admired in Angus, I admire in Murphy. They're why I got another cattle dog. Intelligence. Energy. Loyalty.
Angus enjoyed playing fetch, but usually only eight times in a row. On the ninth toss of the ball, stick, or frisbee, he'd fetch the object and then walk away from me, dropping the item as far away from me as possible, then trot around the park. "We're done now." Murphy seems incapable of tiring of the game. My arm gives out before his energy flags.
My coworker Trish cautioned me before I adopted Murphy, "Once you've had a canine soul mate, it's never the same. The next dog is good. Great even. But it's not the same."
As I come on three months with Murphy, I wonder if this will be true for me. I don't (yet) lock eyes with Murphy and intuit what he thinks/wants/needs like I did with Angus. Murphy has an independence, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes that says, "You think you know me, old man, but you're wrong!"
And yet, this wonderful thing has started to happen. When we go to the dog park, Murphy will often chase another dog (usually a standard poodle) into the wooded grove, out of sight. I'll hear the crashing of dogs through brush, an occasional bark, then silence. I'll worry. Is something wrong? Is he up to trouble? I'll call, "Murphy!" followed by a two-toned whistle. Suddenly, I'll hear the crunching of underbrush again and Murphy will burst out of the shrubbery like a guided missile and slide into me like he's stealing home. He'll look up as if to say, "'Sup, Dad? We gonna play fetch again?" His oversized perky ears turn to me like satellite dishes, awaiting a response.
And in those moments, with Murphy breathless and attentive and exuberant at my feet, I wonder if maybe, just maybe, you can grow into a canine soul mate.
