Canine Good Citizen, Therapy Dog, Companion Dog, Honourary Frenchie and Official Puppy Licker

The Natural Disaster

Throughout most of her life, Murfee radiated a calm sense of dignity. She could be playful when it suited her, but for the most part she truly fit the description "Grandeur and Good Nature". What few people knew was that, underneath that sophisticated demeanor, there lay the heart of a wonderfully weird dog.

For one thing, she had a Barbie fetish. I have lost count of the number of decapitated Barbie corpses we found floating around the house.The mystery of where the heads went was solved one day in our back yard, and remains one of our fondest memories of the dog my ex-husband still calls "the Natural Disaster".

We saw Murf galloping wildly around the back yard, whipping her head from side to side. Every so often, she'd stop and roll around on the grass, gazing dolefully at her rear end. When she got closer, we saw she had something attached to her butt - we thought it was a burr, or a clump of thistle grass. As she raced past us, we saw that it was a half digested Barbie head, dangling from her rear by just the hair and swaying eerily in the breeze. Spooky, to say the least. As she ran around the yard, Barbie head trailing behind her, my husband and I debated whether or not we should try to catch her and detach the grisly remnant of her snack. We were both laughing too hard to actually do anything about it.

We hope there are Barbie heads in heaven, too. Preferrably hairless.

Murfee also had some creative ideas about home decorating. She considered stairs to be suitable chew toys, literally demolishing a solid, 6 inch thick oak slab door stop from our farm house. She never was a frantic chewer - she simply liked to lie in the sun and chew methodically on the door stop while she napped. She'd actually fall alseep with the corner of it clamped in her mouth, like a mastiff sized pacifier.

The pressure treated wood stairs to our deck presented little in the way of a challenge to her formidable chewing skills - she simply pulled away the top board one afternoon and carried it over to her dog bed. Mastiffs prefer to chew in comfort.

Then there was the time we left her out of her crate for one brief afternoon - an afternoon she spent happily pulling the wood panelling off of our family room walls. Of course, she had to first remove the baseboards to do so. Again, she only ate what she could comfortably reach from her drop n' flop bed.

Hmm, what else did Murfee eat? Part of a chair, most of a coffee table, assorted plastic action figures, more shoes than I can count... We soon learned to channel Murfee's chewing into a safer - and less expensive - outlet. We bought her a giant black rubber Kong toy, which we stuffed with bits of cookies and hard cheddar. Murfee was a quick study- it didn't take her long to figure out that if she smashed them on the floor - hard - she could knock the treats out of it. She applied this logic - that all chewies hold secret surprises in the center - to every chew toy she encountered after that. This back fired on us when I decided to buy her a *HUGE* section of cow leg bone from our butcher's. A great idea - until she smashed it onto our mexican tile floor and cracked three of them up the middle.

Murfee's most spectacular demolition did not even involve chewing, simply her massive natural strength. Never one to tolerate cold well, she had to be forced to go outside in the winter time, especially if she was enjoying a nice warm fire. One night we didn't open the patio doors to let her back in fast enough, so she simply slammed her big body against them once - smashing the entire pane of glass out of its frame and onto the floor. Murf simply walked over the mess and back to the fire place.

She is deeply missed - messes, slobber, headless barbies and all.