The Murphy Follies

This dog has no shortage of character, that's for sure.

Yesterday, I decided to take him swimming. Now Murphy loves to swim, and when he sees me get a towel and my swim leg, he goes bonkers. He runs downstairs, grabs his leash, and brings it to me, Then he dances around, crying with joyful anticipation.

We go get in the SUV and head down to the river. enroute, I see one of the local neighborhood punks riding his ATV illegally down the road so I go to dial up 911 to see if they have a car in the area. Naturally, as soon as I go to make the call, he turns off the road onto some private land so I shrug and hang up. Now my phone had already dialed, so a few seconds later, my phone rang back with the 911 operator calling to investigate the "911 hang-up" and make sure that everything was ok.

Of course as soon as I tell him why I'd started to cal then changed my mind, Murphy starts his loud "I wanna swim NOW!" crying just behind my seat. "Aiyyeeeeeee! Aiyeeeeeee!" And the 911 operator hears it.
"Sir, is there anyone else there with you? I'm going to need to speak to that person, sir!"

"It's a dog," I explain. "I swear to God, it's just a dog."

Murphy, on cue, goes "Aiyeeeeeee!" And he's safely behind a cargo screen so I can't get a hand back there to smack him.

"Sir, I have your address as..." says the 911 operator. And he gave the me my address. I didn't even know that they could do that with cell phones.

"Yes, that's my address, "I said." But I'm not there. I'm taking the dog swimming to the boat launch off Xxxxxxxxx Road, and that's why he's acting the fool."

I think that I finally convinced him. at any rate, no police car showed up, either at the boat launch or at my house, per the neighbor. But thanks, Murphy. Thanks for doing your best to get me put on some Domestic Violence registry.

"Yeah, yeah...whatever. Just throw the ball!"

We play fetch for a bit, and finally Murphy gets out of the water and decides to go visit a couple who are peacefully fishing about 30 yards away. Dripping wet, he walks all the way over to them, stops in front of them, and then and only then does he shake all of the river water out of his fur. He could have done that anywhere, but he had to go over by the only other people in sight to do it. Fortunately they didn't mad. They'd been watching him fetch the ball in the river and thought that he was neat and well-behaved. Uh, yeah...ok. Murphy well-behaved? Maybe when he's asleep.