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Granted, Murphy's pretty much terrified of everything. She's one of those dogs, the ones who cower and shake at the slightest little change in anything. Look at Murphy the wrong way, and she'll cry like you slapped her.

Murphy's a product of a puppy mill, but I'm sure you figured that out all by yourself. I mean, just refer back to the photo. She was rescued as a puppy and adopted by someone who had no business with a high-energy hound puppy. Her previous owner worked 12-14 hours a day and left Murphy crated by herself. By the time we got her when she was nine months old, she was beyond basket case.

Oh, but we had good intentions! We were going to get her trained up right! Obedience school! Patience and love!

Two weeks after adopting Murphy, I got pregnant. Trained up, she's not. Smart, she's not. Confident, she's not. This dog is such a chicken that - I kid you not - she sleeps with her eyes open.

Do you know what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night and look across the dark to see blank, vacant brown eyes attatched to a snoring head staring back at you? But I love her nonetheless.

There. I said it. I love Murphy. Which is lucky for her because oh my God, she's refusing to go outside during the times when Snoopy's outside, which is roughly all of the daylight hours and half of the nighttime hours.

Murphy can be in a dead sleep in the front room. Snoopy can bark in the backyard and she'll wake up, panicked and trembling.

Right now, he's not even outside, but she's sitting on the couch, staring out the window in the direction of his house, trembling. The mere sight of his house strikes terror down to her very core.

Fucking dumbass.

Murphy will go outside at 5 AM when B. gets up for work, and again at 11 PM before we go to bed. She's mostly fine in the mornings and afternoons, but around dinnertime, she starts pacing and whining.

Pace and whine, looking worried. She'll look at me, look at the backdoor, and sigh.

Sometimes she'll even sit by the backdoor and look pitiful. But when we open the door to let her outside, she flees as if we're about to punt her into the fiery bowels of Hell.

Murphy's one saving grace is that she has never, ever peed or pooped in the house, so at least we're not dealing with that. I'm starting to get concerned about urinary tract infections and I swear to God, I'm not pouring cranberry juice down that dog's gullet or administering any ointments or creams. I love her, but not that much.

Last night was the worst. While dinner was cooking, Murphy awoke and started her dinnertime nervous pacing. Back and forth, across the living room, glancing to the backdoor. Snoopy was outside, barking. And so she paced. She paced and paced and paced until she managed to pace the nervous puke right out of herself, trailing it from one end of the living room to the other.

Yep, this house is gonna sell really fast. Who wouldn't want the pacy puke house?