judgement day

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in rescue (well...actually in life in general) you cannot get away from judgements for or against you. judgements are actually helpful if somewhat annoying little hits that should keep you practicing insight and internal evaluation to avoid wandering too far from your mission.

dear murphy was a perfect example of this. he once was a tortured skin dog living with a family who thru the fickle fingers of fate were far, far too sick themselves to actually care for him.
he came to saints and we fixed his skin. and then we adopted him to a family with a solid plan on how to continue to manage him. they quit following the plan and he was entering tortured existence again. we took him back and fixed his skin. we adopted him out a second time with not only a solid plan but with very strong cautions not to screw around getting creative with him. but they then became suppliers of some type of super healthy fix everything k9food and they started getting into au naturale and murphy's skin went deeply south. when they phoned me he was ripping himself into bloody shreds, they were convinced it was emotional and requested permission to euthanize him.
we took him back.
no one was happy with us..this was a good home with rescue friends.
and then the judgements began...people in rescue telling us we were beyond cruel in allowing that poor dog to suffer. he should be allowed to be forever free from all of his suffering.

which we did...we fixed his skin yet again and murphy was happy and torture free. that is when i decided murph would remain a permanent sanctuary dog. we knew how to manage his skin issues and we stuck to the plan despite the growing consensus with a few judgemental rescues that we were in fact still torturing this very sweet dog.
i really liked murphy...he was a couch potato and a bed hog. he loved napping at every opportunity..just like i do!

eventually i caved and let laura take him home..it was a big loss for me but a great gift to murphy who everyone loved. laura used to bring him back to saints during her volunteer hours here and murphy at some point would disappear from all the action to sneak in a nap on my bed or one of the couches until she was ready to head home again.
laura and jody loved murph to bits. they kept his skin in good control so it never tortured him again.

sometimes the folks looking in from the outside don't always understand everything going on within. and in making negative judgements, they aren't being evil..they are just missing some important considerations. however, every rescues responsibility is to ensure the very best care for every animal that they take in. we knew we were doing right by murphy, we knew he had and could continue to have a great quality of life as long as his skin issues were managed and controlled.

in this case the judgement that murph should die was way off base and completely wrong. murph had almost 10 years with a family who loved him, who cared for him, who kept him safe and feeling well.
i think he is grateful for a long life that he lived so very well.
he was a truly great dog and he has touched deeply the hearts of all who knew him.

RIP murphy..hugs to laura and family.