Murphy’s Law

A lot of things happened as December breezed by, at least one of which I never expected to see: We got a dog.

I mean, there’s no reason my family is automatically indisposed to having a dog. We’re nice and responsible and not skittish about picking up poop, so there was nothing stopping us from having a dog, aside from long-standing resistance from one family member, who seems to have made the mistake of skimming animal shelter websites and falling in love with a picture of this particular puppy, who joined our family yesterday.

The friend who seems to inspire half of these posts told me recently that a friend who had suffered a death in her family had also unexpectedly gotten a dog and how that acquisition “changed the temperature” in the family. I suppose we’ll see how our new puppy works for us.

Everyone, of course, is in love with him. After an epic debate that would have made the UN General Assembly blush, we settled on the name Murphy. Runners-up were Hobbes, Crowley, Taco and Spiro Agnew. His mother was a street dog in Romania (and she’s about half his size, so that raises some questions about family dynamics there). She was rescued off the streets and gave birth to Murphy and a sibling about 10 months ago. He was brought to Germany by an animal rescue group about four months ago and here we are, learning to integrate him into his family. We are finding that his opinions about being able to sleep on the sofa are almost as strong as our opinions that he not be allowed to. Ditto his deep-held belief that he ought to be able to launch himself onto the dining table during meals and help himself, versus our opinion that this is behavior unbecoming. It’s Day 2 of an adventure: We shall see how it goes.

There are all kinds of thoughts that hit as we go through this, and I’m only speaking about my mental processes. A month or so ago when we had to have segregated meals because we were worried Emma had the coronavirus, it upset her that we were back to separate meals, like we’d been during the worst of Colin’s illness. Getting him socialized means I’m almost holding him away from the table with one arm (great for the biceps!) while everyone else eats, after which I can have my meal (unless it’s something I can eat one-handed). It’s nowhere the same as either of the above examples, but the idea that we were keeping a new family member separate flitted through my mind at one point. I also wondered if anyone would think we were trying to replace Colin with Murphy. Then I realized that a) we’re not and b) what do I care if someone thinks that. Maybe the family needed a dog. Maybe Murphy just needed a family. It at least feels like a normal thing families do, and that feeling has been in short supply at times in our family. Welcome, Murphy.