Murphy photo gallery 1 - 8-10 weeks

Murphy photo gallery 2 - 3-4 months

Murphy photo gallery 3 - 5-6 months

Georgia and Ben have recently become the proud parents of a beautiful chocolate border collie. We named him Murphy, which means 'sea hound' according to our Irish names book; we only thought of Murphy's law later. So far he doesn't seem too keen on swimming (although he loves the beach) but has got into heaps of mischief, so Murphy's law has been more relevant!

Murphy is a lovely dark reddish chocolate colour, with a lovely white blaze, tail tip, legs, and half collar. His ears were half pricked until about 17 weeks, when the left ear suddenly decided to stand up, so he looks pretty cute and lopsided at the moment, especially when he cocks his head in that eager collie way when you're talking.

He is doing really well at training and picks things up amazingly quickly. He seems to be naturally quite submissive and eager to please, the dominant side of his nature only comes out when he tries to boss the cat around. We'd love to do some agility or flyball with him when he's a bit older, and Ben is also hoping to train him as a therapy dog as part of the Delta Society's Pet Partners program.

So far Murphy understands:

• sit
• come
• look
• drop
• wait
• stay
• carry
• stand
• shake
• leave it
• inyaget/outyaget
• NO
• roll over
• bang (you're dead)
• love (makes him very alert, although we don't know what he thinks it means!)
• where's:
  • georgia
  • ben
  • frankie
  • the ball

he's working on heel!

He hates having a bath, loves chasing the cat and the soccer ball, and wags his whole body when he's happy.

He loves georgia's parents' black labrador, "Uncle" Lothar, who is his best dog friend; he is very unsure about small or fluffy dogs whose eyes are covered by fur. He also barks at surfers in their black wetsuits at the beach.

Murphy was bred by Sally Nowlan of Nakiva Border Collies, with just a little help from Dakota. You can also view some photos of Murphy's litter mates.