A Whistler dog has become a local celebrity after a video of him was shared on social media.
On Tuesday at about 3 p.m., Arthur Gooch heard a truck horn going off at Blackcomb Base Parking Lot 8.
He decided to walk over and see what was causing the noise, thinking to himself it was a broken truck horn.
“No, just an angry dog,” he says.
To his surprise, a dog was sitting upright in the front seat with his paw on the horn looking unimpressed.
“I was laughing so hard,” says Gooch. “I’m surprised the phone wasn’t shaking.”
He shared the video of the incident to Facebook.
The post garnered lots of attention, prompting the dog's owner to come forward.
Jay Henitiuk’s daughter showed him the video, knowing right away that the dog was Murphy.
“It was nothing that I expected, but nothing that really shocked me because he is that kind of character. He’s a funny boy,” he says.
“He must have just lifted his paw up and locked it on the horn button."
Murphy, the almost two-year-old boxer, weighs about 80 pounds and is super friendly. Every day, Henitiuk will do a few runs, never longer than an hour, and meet Murphy back at the truck.
"I don’t ski for long, I am never away for that long,” he tells Glacier Media. “We always park in Lot 8; that is our regular spot.”
Henitiuk always thought Murphy was just sleeping in the truck.
“It’s quite random because he doesn’t do that regularly. Boxers are very heavy-chested and they do sit very upright like that,” he says.
Henitiuk believes the viral incident was a one-off.
“He does often sit in the front seat and wait for me. He has a dog bed in the back too and he’ll often just sit in there and hang out.”
Henitiuk, a Whistler resident of 16 years, says some people recognized Murphy as the dog from the video during a recent walk.
“He loves his Whistler life. He patrols the neighbourhood,” he says. “He’s got a best friend Dotti who lives just five houses down.”
Henitiuk welcomes anyone to say hello to Murphy while they're out and about.
“If you want to let him out the door is unlocked just let him out and play with him and put him back in, that’d be cool,” he says.
