Murphy's House
Murphy the Dog didn’t simply like people; she seemed to collect them. More than any dog I’ve ever known, Murphy was the canine equivalent of a people-person, although even that feels like an understatement. She had a way of drawing in even the most dog-averse individuals, although she was rarely content to leave those encounters entirely up to chance. She was always looking for a way to come a little closer, get someone’s attention, or convince a neighbor to come over and say hello.
Murphy had many favorite spots in our yard, but the one she liked best was up front. Sitting as close to the curb as our invisible fence would allow, she had a prime view of everything happening in the neighborhood, and more importantly, everyone who might be walking toward her. You could almost tell how far away someone was by watching Murphy’s tail. When she first spotted a neighbor coming down the sidewalk, her long, whip-like tail would start with a slow wag. As the person got closer, the wag would accelerate until it crescendoed into her distinctive full-body wiggle. Usually, the wiggle was accompanied by a high-pitched whine that became increasingly desperate as the person approached. Murphy was not subtle. She wanted you to come over and pet her, and she wanted you to know it.
As a couple of introverts ourselves, Andrew and I have been more than happy to let Murphy serve as the extroverted member of our family from the start. We moved into our new construction home back in the fall of 2019 and adopted Murphy shortly after. It didn’t take long for us to realize that many of our neighbors knew Murphy before they knew us. When Andrew and I would meet someone new and explain where we lived, we would often hear some version of, “Oh, you mean the house with the white dog that sits at the edge of the lawn?” We named our home Wi-Fi network “Murphy’s House,” because apparently our dog had established a stronger neighborhood identity than either of the humans actually paying the mortgage. At the time, it was mostly a joke. Looking back, I’m not sure we could have picked a better name.
Murphy keeping an eye on the neighborhood
“Murphy’s House” had only been ours for two weeks when Murphy entered the picture. At the time, she wasn’t Murphy at all. She was an eight-month-old shelter dog named Honey who Andrew had found online one Saturday night. When he showed me the posting, I felt pulled to get to her as quickly as possible. On paper, she checked all our initial boxes: female, medium-sized, and less than a year old.
I drove about 45 minutes on Sunday morning to arrive just as they were unlocking the doors to the shelter, speed-walking behind a family that thankfully made a right turn toward the cat wing. The staff showed me to Honey’s kennel and then let me take her outside for a walk on the lawn. I immediately started sending Andrew pictures and videos of the dog I was already fairly sure I wanted to bring home. She may have been a little jumpier than I let on in those pictures and videos, but I put a hold on her anyway.
Andrew came back to the shelter with me later that night. Before we went, he only had one question for me: “Is she sweet?” “Yes. Very sweet,” I replied. And that is all it took. Andrew met Honey for himself that night and fell in love with her too. We named her Murphy, a name that had long been at the top of our running list of future dog names after a character in one of our favorite films, Interstellar. Not long after, we discovered there was also a Murphy Lake tucked inside the regional park just three miles east of our new house. At the time, it seemed like a funny coincidence. Murphy joined Andrew and me as a couple, but she turned us into a family of three.
Before she was Murphy, she was Honey.
We came into dog ownership with some baseline expectations. For example, Murphy was absolutely not going to sleep in our bed. Andrew was a light sleeper and worried about having a dog moving around next to him all night. I was less concerned about sleep and more concerned about the brand-new white bedding we had just bought and the dog hair and dirty paws that would inevitably come with allowing a dog into it. For the first month of Murphy ownership, we constructed ridiculous barricades out of large pieces of furniture around our bed each night to keep her out. Murphy would sleep on the other side, close to us, but not quite as close as she wanted to be.
This worked until one afternoon when I was at work and Andrew was taking a nap. Murphy decided she had waited long enough. Somehow, she managed to maneuver her way around our carefully constructed defenses and army-crawl into bed next to him. When I came home and questioned Andrew about why the dog was suddenly in our bed, he just shrugged and said, “How could I not let her up? She army-crawled into my heart.” And just like that, a rule we had been committed enough to enforce with actual furniture lasted approximately one month.
From then on, Murphy slept in our bed, and eventually it became hard to imagine her anywhere else. Over the years, she settled almost exclusively on my side, pressed against my body like a life-sized stuffed animal or stretched across the bottom of the bed with her head resting on my feet. Somewhere along the way, I stopped caring quite so much about keeping our white bedding white. Murphy’s white hair worked its way into every blanket, sheet, and pillowcase we owned, and I would spend the next several years complaining about it while simultaneously making room for her beside me every night.
Murphy laying in her favorite spot on my side of the bed
Sleeping pressed against us apparently wasn’t enough physical closeness for Murphy. From what started as an alternative to jumping, she developed a unique habit of approaching people from behind and gently pushing her nose through the space between their legs until she had worked her entire body underneath them. Family members and visitors alike learned to be prepared for Murphy to suddenly appear beneath them, standing perfectly content between their legs as if that were an entirely normal place for a dog to be.
Murphy learned all the normal dog tricks—sit, lay down, stay, roll over—but my favorite was appropriately one that gave her an excuse to get even closer to us. We called it “hug.” I would kneel in front of her and tap my shoulders, and Murphy would carefully put one paw up, then the other, before shimmying herself forward until both of her front legs were draped across my back.
Murphy’s tendency to form attachments wasn’t limited to people. She had one particularly beloved stuffed animal we called Monkey. I had originally bought Monkey for Andrew during a college spring break trip to Los Angeles with my softball team, but once Murphy came along, ownership transferred. She carried Monkey around the house like her baby, brought it to bed, and always seemed to know exactly where it was when we told her, “Go find your monkey.”
One night, Murphy curled up next to Monkey just as she had countless times before. There was nothing particularly remarkable about that night at the time, but it would turn out to be the last one that Andrew, Murphy and I spent as a family of three. My water broke that night, and a few hours later, Cooper was born.
A Murphy hug, and her beloved Monkey
From there, Murphy’s House started to get a little more crowded. Murphy was beside me through pregnancies and maternity leaves with both Cooper and Cole, and then through every stage that followed. As the boys learned to talk, “Murphy” became “Mur-see,” her name apparently just difficult enough for two new talkers to give it their own interpretation. As babies, their affection often meant little bodies sprawled across hers. As toddlers, it meant arms wrapped tightly around her neck and enthusiastic kisses that probably involved more force and slobber than she would have preferred. Murphy patiently accepted all of it and usually returned those kisses with plenty of her own. Our boys have never known our family without Murphy in it, and as they grew, their routines simply became hers too.
Murphy loved her role as a big sister
For years, Murphy was ready for bed significantly earlier than Andrew and I were. She would stand at the bottom of the stairs and turn around to stare at us, making it very clear that she thought we should all be heading upstairs. If we ignored her long enough, she would eventually go without us, but she would only tolerate our absence for so long. Before long, she would reappear halfway down the stairs, sitting in the most awkward position imaginable—her butt on one step, front paws on the step below and shoulders hunched forward—staring at us with those giant brown eyes as if to ask what exactly was taking us so long.
Once the boys developed their own bedtime routines, Murphy incorporated those into hers too. She would lie in the upstairs loft just outside their bathroom and bedrooms in what we called her “settle” position, her body stretched straight as an arrow with her head resting on the floor between her front paws. She waited there patiently while teeth were brushed, pajamas were put on, books were read and goodnights were said. As soon as their bedroom door closed, Murphy knew what came next and headed straight for our bed—my side, obviously.
Murphy's nightly bedtime reminder pose
Over the years, those routines became the rhythm of our house, and Murphy provided much of its soundtrack. Her toenails clicked across the wood floors as she trailed behind us after we walked in the door from work, earning her the nickname “Miss Click-y-toes.” After doing her business outside, we would hear the light scratching and tapping of her paw against the front door, letting us know she was ready to come back inside. At bedtime, there was the unmistakable rhythmic cadence of her bounding up the stairs, usually ahead of the rest of us. And then, of course, there was the high-pitched whine she used whenever she felt particularly strongly that we should be paying attention to her.
My favorite sound may have been the little grumble Murphy made once she had finally settled somewhere near us. We’d hear it at bedtime, when she would curl herself into her signature donut shape beside us in bed. She would also grumble when we made our way into the living room after dinner for family time. Murphy would often choose to lie right in front of the couch by our feet. Once she had found just the right spot, she would let out that little sound somewhere between a grunt and a sigh, her entire body relaxing as if to announce she had no plans to move again anytime soon.
Murphy’s presence around the house wasn't limited to its soundtrack. Her white hair has become so thoroughly embedded in the fabrics and fibers of our home that I’m convinced we will still be finding it years from now. It is woven deep into the carpet. It somehow survives a full cycle through the washing machine still attached to our clothes. It collects with the dust on the tops of tables and chairs we don’t dust as often as we should. It is especially plentiful along the front edge of our living room couch, where Murphy frequently rubbed her entire body back and forth when one of us isn’t fast enough to give her a scratch. Over the past seven years, she has worked an impressive amount of white hair into the blue fabric.
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Murphy in her element: outside on a perfect fall day
We only had ten days from first noticing Murphy’s health declining to her final breath, which was much faster than we were prepared for. During that stretch of days, I sent a message to our family, friends, and closest neighbors letting them know that if they saw her outside, they could come over and give her some gentle love and say goodbye. Over the next few days, our community made its way into our yard and our home to see Murphy one more time. She was clearly exhausted, but still wagged her long tail as people approached. There were a lot of tears shed and stories shared about the neighborhood dog they had gotten to know and love as their own. For years, Murphy had sat at the edge of that lawn trying to convince people to come to her. In her final days, they did just that.
The Saturday that we said goodbye was one of those perfect fall days Murphy loved. The sun was shining, bouncing off the vibrant tips of the leaves that were just starting to change color. A crisp breeze blew through the air, the kind that made you want to cuddle up under a blanket—unless, of course, you had fur. On days like that, Murphy loved nothing more than spending the entire day outside. She would sit in the grass watching the world around her, nose lifted just enough to catch the breeze. Eventually, she’d stretch out in her sunny spot for hours, her face settling into the expression we always described as her smile.
The lawn is empty today, and inside, the house is quieter than I have ever known it. There is no clicking of toenails across the wood floor behind us, no scratching at the door to come back inside, no familiar cadence of Murphy bounding up the stairs at bedtime. It’s amazing how quiet a house can suddenly seem when the sounds you barely noticed for years are gone.
There is a void in Murphy’s House now that won’t ever truly go away, but over time, the house will become full again. There will still be kids running in and out of these doors, neighbors stopping in the yard to visit, family gathered around the table, and ordinary nights spent together in the living room. Cooper and Cole will continue to grow up here. Life will keep filling the rooms around the space Murphy left behind.
A few months before Murphy died, the five of us took what would turn out to be our last family walk together. It was Cole’s idea to go to what the boys call the “Murphy Woods,” the trails surrounding Murphy Lake near our house. Andrew and the boys led the way, collecting cool rocks along the trail and trying to decide which tree was the tallest. I trailed behind holding Murphy’s purple leash while she darted from one side of the trail to the other, stopping constantly to investigate new smells along the way. After weeks of sweltering summer temperatures, it was finally a cooler day, and Murphy spent the whole walk smiling as she explored alongside her people.
When Murphy’s ashes come home, we’ll take some of them back to the Murphy Woods and walk those same trails again, scattering them in the spaces surrounding the lake that shares her name. The rest will find their place at home, along the edge of the pond behind Murphy’s House.
Murphy’s Rainbow Bridge, over our backyard the evening we said goodbye
