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Murphy Brown’s Story

We rescued a male yellow lab through Desert Labrador Retriever Rescue November 2001. We named him Leo and after only a year, he passed (within 24 hours) from renal failure on December 11, 2002.

My husband Gil and I are volunteers for DLRR, doing home visitations for the Northern Arizona area. When Leo passed I was heart broken. Our other Lab named “BJ” and our cat named “Tiger” also missed him dearly.

Gil started going to the local animal shelter to look at dogs. He told me about a big curly chocolate lab that was in prison there. Gil started spending time with this big guy and talked me into adopting him in January 2003.

I wasn’t ready for a Leo replacement, but went along with it because it was right in Gil’s heart. When I met this big curly guy, he wasn’t a chocolate lab but a pure bred Chesapeake Bay Retriever. He was a big dog weighing in at 110 lbs. and we named him Murphy Brown. I knew nothing about the Chessie breed so I started doing research. Breed descriptions were tenacious, stubborn, cantankerous, loyal, and family dogs. For the first month we didn’t experience any of the negative Chessie traits. However, Murphy started to act up in early February. We soon found out if you don’t give a Chessie a job to do, they find their own job – and you may not like the job they choose. One day before Valentines Day, Murphy ate all of my homemade soaps, lotions, lip glosses and chocolates that I had made for valentine gifts. Wrappers, bags, and debris were all over the living room. When I can home from work and opened the door I almost had heart failure. There was Murphy Brown sitting in the middle of the wreckage just smiling. I turned around, slammed the door, and left leaving the mess for Gil to clean up. After all it was his dog. By the way, he passed everything without problem.

We learned Murphy was a trash can digger too. He loved to go downstairs for a midnight snack, spreading trash all over the kitchen, and he loved to eat in the living room.

Murphy was also very afraid of thunder, gunshots, loud and strange noises, and even the beep of the cordless telephone. When we were not home, during thunder storms, he would knock over full size dressers for a safe haven.

After several months of Murphy’s typical Chessy behavior, I was not bonding very well with him and wondered how much longer I could put up with this dominate, stubborn beast.

We finally found out that we had to teach him who was master (Alpha dog). After a few tackelings and some serious heart to heart conversations (which included the serious threat of packing his bags), Murphy started understanding and straightening up. In the following months I bonded closely and fell in love with Mr. Brown and so did Gil, BJ and Tiger.

Murphy being the Chessie that he was, loved to swim and I mean a real deep love. We made several trips to Lake Powell and he swam ALL DAY LONG.
He would swim way out and do circles the whole time talking (barking).
He also loved to dive and grab large rocks out of the water to make his swimming areas bigger and better. We had many glorious days hiking, swimming and boating. In 2004 we bought some property along the Colorado River just for the dogs, as Murphy loved to go to the beach to swim.

In November 2004 while we were walking, along the dike road near the marsh at our river property, Murphy and BJ were running in and out of the brush to the water when we noticed Murphy was trying to run but had lost the control of his back legs. The rest of the weekend (no more swimming) Murphy seemed fine. We made an appointment with our vet to see why he lost control of his back legs. X-rays showed hip dysplasia. We started some pain medication treatment, but after a week, nothing had changed.

We took Murphy back to the vet and they thought it was possible that Murphy had torn his ACL. We made arrangements for the ACL examination, possible surgery, and prepared for his after care. We were told that after surgery Murphy would need to have minimal exercise and we wondered how do you keep a Chessie down.

The day of his surgery, Dr Liz double checked his ACL and found there wasn’t a problem. The vet did more tests to rule out Valley Fever, then a leg x-ray showed a mass in his right rear leg. Next came a bone biopsy.
Our big brown dog was a trooper though all the exams and tests.

When the bone biopsy came back positive for osteo sarcoma (Bone Cancer), our hearts dropped. My beloved Murphy Brown, my big brown dog had the dreaded “C” word, cancer.

We made an appointment with an Oncologist in Phoenix and were amazed at the number of dogs that were being treated for cancer at the facility. We became a little depressed at the survival statistics and made the very hard decision to amputate his rear leg and start chemo therapy as soon as possible. After losing Leo suddenly, we decided that we would do everything we could to save Murphy.

The day before Christmas 2005 we took Murphy to our Chinese Medicine doctor for pre-surgery treatment (The Chinese have been treating cancer with herbs for centuries) and Murphy’s leg was amputated on December 26, 2005.

Four days later we made the 140 mile trip to the Oncologist in Phoenix for his first chemo treatment. We made a make-shift bed in the living room and the entire family slept downstairs until we felt sure that we could help Murphy up the stairs with a sling. It is amazing how fast he recovered. In mid January, Murphy had the dog door wired and he had figured out how to use a ramp to get down the deck stairs, but needed help to go up.

We adapted our lifestyle to accommodate Murphy, our beloved family member. We had a sling, used child gates for the stairs, used special med’s, purchased special food and herbs, scheduled holistic check ups, and did 4 more chemo treatments.

In February 2006 we took Murphy down to the river. We put on his life vest and he swam to his hearts content, he was in heaven. I cried for joy to see him doing his favorite activity. We made several more trips to the Colorado River and went on little walks in the forest behind our home in Flagstaff to keep his body strong. We had him on a regular schedule for lung x-rays as we were told that if the cancer were to progress the lungs would be the first place.

In July 2006 x-rays showed a small mass in the lungs and we knew the clock was ticking a little faster. We took Murphy swimming locally more and made it a point to get our boat fixed for some final boating on the river.

On October 13, 2006 Murphy had a glorious day on the Colorado River, Swimming, boating and swimming. It was a perfect, precious and a priceless day.

After we got back home from the weekend, Murphy seemed a little more tired, in a little more pain, and just not himself. We took him in early for more x-rays to see if there was significant change in the lungs. We had scheduled Murphy for x-rays every 8 weeks since his chemo therapy and we took these at 6 weeks. The x-ray’s revealed a little more growth and another mass but the vet was not concerned because of the slow growth. We put him on some other pain medication for his remaining rear leg.

On November 6th Murphy threw up after dinner. The next day he seemed a little down so we took him in to the vet that night. Blood work showed he was having a pancreatic attack. Our vet hooked him up with some meds and we couldn’t give him food or water for 24 hours. I stayed home that Wednesday morning and Gil came home in the afternoon to stay with Murphy. We introduced food and water that night and Murphy threw up again. He had somewhat of a rough night so we took him back to the vet Thursday morning and they hospitalized him. We visited him daily morning, noon and night. We found out that Pancreatic treatment is rough. He was hospitalized until Tuesday November 14th. We introduced baby food to Murphy on Sunday and he only would eat it out of my hand, a good sign.

Everything was looking pretty good and the vet was going to release him Tuesday night. Gil was on his way to the vet after work to bring my big guy home and I was trying to finish up at work to be home upon his arrival when I got a call at work from Murphy’s doctor. He had passed right before Gil got to the clinic. The doctor said that he collapsed right in front of her and he didn’t respond to CPR. She thinks it was probably a blood clot, which is a concern with lung masses, and he passed very quickly.

It was his time to go and his loss is so painful. We miss Murphy so much we can’t even describe it. I know he is a whole dog again, pain free, swimming and running around. We miss his morning roo roo’s, His playful attitude, smile, and his constant watch and concern over us. He has left a large void on the bed at night and it seems strange how I can still hear the clink of his collar and his breathing sometimes. I suppose some day that will stop. It has been two months since Murph’s passing and the clink and breathing seems to grown fainter and fainter. I am scared I will forget him. I never want to forget my beloved big brown dog.

Our beloved Murphy went on to the Rainbow Bridge on November 14, 2006 after year long courageous battle with osteo sarcoma/bone cancer. Even after his rear leg amputation and chemo therapy treatment, he was a happy big brown dog. We miss his morning roo roo’s, his constant attention, and his always happy personality. Murphy will be known for his hogging toys, barking at cattle guards, being a swimming fool, being a bed hog, and his genuine concern for his family. We will miss you always, but you will never be forgotten.

Rest in peace until we meet again.

Jenn, Gil, BJ, Molly, and Oscar Smaby