*Warning: If you don’t want to read anything saddening, please do not continue.
We try to update our followers and fans of Lil’ Murph as to how our sweet, smart, and comical rebel/fighter is doing, if he is great or has been to the lizard doctor. We share who is in his life and who is no longer.
As some of you know, we got a dog over a year ago. Jazzy entered, or more appropriately, barged her way into our lives from the local shelter.
Not being a dog person, in part because I didn’t need or want the extra labor or icky furniture, I, nevertheless succumbed to the sweet and funny girl she showed herself to be after the months it took for her to decompress from what is nearly doggy prison. I won’t go into detail as to how we got her, and I know some of you are wondering how on Earth someone can not be a “dog person.”
Allow me to defend myself. I think every individual insect and animal is beautiful, amazing, and should be protected companions in life. I adore dogs… I just want other people to give them wonderful lives. I simply am drawn to the wild and especially exotic animals.
I was, sadly and admittedly, on the grumpy side of dog momming, in that I kept thinking things like:
•”Ugh, stop clickety-clacking your claws up & down the hall.”
•”Did you seriously eat your own turd? Now I can never kiss your big, cold nose!”
•”I will now never have clean furniture, floors, or windows.”
•”I just took you out five minutes ago! Why won’t you do all your business at once?”
•”Please don’t make that sound with your mouth, stop licking there, and stop staring at me while I eat – you are not hungry.”
•”If you want to play, take your toy to so & so (whoever else, if anyone else is around and willing to play), I’m not your gal, girl.”
So, you see… grumpy. I have to live with that.
However, of course, we had our loving moments. Sometimes, she’d sit in my lap and sing to me. It was the strangest thing, and she only did that to me. I have never seen a dog do what she did. I hope she has no doubt I love her. She loved me too.
I miss our co-investigator. When we heard a noise, Jazzy and I would look at one another. She and I both had the same look in our eyes, which asked one another’ “Did you hear that?” Our eyes told each other that we were on the same page, we both heard the mysterious sound, and we would jump up and together go investigate as to who or what caused the mysterious sounds we tuned into. Her curious face is so sweet.
She had trauma and psychological issues from her previous life, abandonment, and her stay at the shelter with large, scary dogs barking non-stop. Sometimes, she’d shake uncontrollably for no reason and needed held and consoled.
She changed so much during her time of finally having a home. She even began looking forward to visits to the groomer!
Many of our followers know the care that wonderful Murph requires, and also, that if my surroundings aren’t peaceful and orderly (not clean-freak level, but pleasant), I feel less than focused. I have other living beings to care for as well, and we are working so hard on our online store!
We convince ourselves that we are stressed, don’t have time for a dog or someone else, and maybe we don’t. No matter how true, guilt rears its ugly head our way.
I literally had dog-induced anxiety, but I got it from a sweet soul.
I still wasn’t fully used to having Jazzy even after nearly 15 months. Sometimes, she’d bark all of a sudden or for no reason I could see (even at the peaceful Amish men working next door), or her bone would clack on the hard floor and nearly scare me out of my skin wherever I was in the house!!
Sometimes, when I was working out in the basement, I’d hear commotion above and think, “Oh sh**, someone’s in the house (*note to self: keep a weapon in every room), what am I going to use down here to defend myself? Ah-hah… fire extinguisher (that’s just one day’s example)!!” Then I was like, “Oh yeah, it was Jazzy making that noise. The dog will let me know if someone is here!!” Funny, it never occurred to me that the dumbells in my hand might be of use.
December 30th: We received a delivery on the front porch. She loudly made me aware there was a stranger approaching! As I dragged my hide behind me, I opened the door to bring in the packages so she could smell them, as she loved to do.
She did something she never did on all the other deliveries. She somehow squeezed over and around my hip at the door jam while I squatted to pick up the packages. I stood, pushed her against the house the best I could with my leg to try to secure her as I reached for her collar. I just missed it. She bolted across the driveway and ran parallel with the road on the north side of it, heading east. An SUV approached from the west. I had a bad feeling. It’s a 2-lane road with a 30 mph speed limit (although some a**hole people have gone 50, the average is 40, and some daredevil has gone maybe 75+ on a crotch rocket).
If this SUV were going 30 and the driver was attentive, I believe he or she would have had time to see Jazzy and stop. The last I saw of her was the side of her beautiful face before she was struck, screamed, was scooted and ran over. I have tried to figure out why she was hit on the wrong side of the road. The driver was heading east. Jazzy was hit well into the westbound lane. At that exact moment in time, the driver was driving on the wrong side of the road, and was not when I saw it before it got in front of our house. She was initially struck possibly and approximately 25 ft., or almost 8½ yards east of the end of our driveway. The driver did not stop. I screamed Jazzy’s name. Her back to me, she was motionless. The delivery driver, apparently still sitting in the van during this, kindly jumped out and asked if there was anything he could do. All I could muster was “No.”
This same Amazon delivery driver has met Murph and visited this website and commented in the past. If he is reading this, thank you so much for caring and wanting to help, and I’m sorry you had to see her on the road, feel my pain, and finish your work day afterward.
Jazzy and Murphy were just basking together when I opened the door for those packages. After the disaster, I ran in, placed Murph in his cage, tried to think of what I needed, and drove to retrieve Jazzy.
I’m not disclosing details of getting her into my backseat or into the vet clinic that I somehow recalled how to get to. I spared the doctor trying to find words to say when he saw me. They wrapped Jazzy up and placed her in my lap. After a long time, I had to be convinced to stop holding her and go home where the red-streaked road was. I was grateful to the coming rain. We have yet to retrieve her cremains and place them into our home/columbarium. There are two windows of the house where that dreadful spot of the road is visible. I still open the drapes, albeit with a flashback, and I am moving Murph’s enclosure back to the front window tomorrow.
In the beginning, I introduced Murph & Jazzy slowly. It was quite a long time before I let them lie together. Jazzy was so full of life and playful that I didn’t want her to think that she could play with her new brother or hurt him with her toys.
She took to him immediately. Anytime Murph had a bath or we came in from outside, she smelled all over him to make sure he was okay. She knew he was one of her new family pack.
We love you, Jazzy girl. You had so much energy, was resilient, and had a long life ahead. I’m so sorry. You never should have felt that pain, or abandonment in life, or heard mommy complain. Murphy hasn’t forgotten you.
Please don’t feel obligated to comment. They aren’t needed. We don’t post anything saddening for pity or attention. Don’t want it. Just doing what we’ve always done and update with news, and I’ve convinced myself I don’t have time to keep a diary or journal, I find time for a long post though, I guess. So, I think I just needed to do more than a quick update to heal some more.
Hoping everyone is well, healthy, and happy. Enjoy all the beautiful animals.
“Give me Lizardry or give me Death!”
❤️Murph & Dawn
LizardPlanet.com 
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