Yeah, Pembroke Welsh Corgis are kinda small. They are classified as a medium size dog, they just have short legs. [A true dwarf] They were bred in Wales but when that happen is disputed, we know that they are mentioned in a book from the 11 century, but the breed may go back to the 9th century. The Corgi was an essential helper to the farmers of South Wales. Although these little dogs specialized in herding cattle, nipping at their heels and then ducking under their kicking hooves, they were almost certainly also used in herding sheep and even Welsh Ponies.
Now days they are used for herding but they excel at agility competitions.
We decided to get this breed because we wanted an inside dog that was small [smallish] but sturdy. I was afraid that a breed that was too small may be too frail to stand up to the big dog life style that we offer here. We have always had big breeds, and we wanted to keep that big dog thing going, we just wanted it in a small package. A big dog in a small body, that's exactly what we got.
One time a lady came over to look at the puppies, she fell in love with the breed long ago, and always wanted one. She had apparently told her husband about her desire to have one, and when she was here her husband was walking around the yard looking as uninterested as one can be, he confessed that he wasn't thrilled about the prospect of getting a Corgi. He told me that his buddies at work were giving him the business because his wife wanted a corgi. They told him that he would end up with a dog that would get high centered in the woods. I thought that was pretty funny because I might have thought the same thing once, just looking at the short legged little guys. I called Fuey, our wonder boy, and threw the red Kong, bouncing it on the driveway and over the 4 ft rock wall, Fuey bounded right over the wall after it. He returned like he always does with the Kong, dropped it and I threw it again, this time over the firewood pile. Fuey jumped onto the wood pile and scrambled over the top and returned with the Kong. That man threw the Kong for Fuey for about a half an hour, each time trying to get it into a place where he thought Fuey couldn't get to it, only to have it dropped right back at his feet. The puppy that the man picked out looked just like Fuey, it was no longer his wife's deal, it became his dog, and in the weeks before the puppy was old enough to go home he visited him many times, sometimes with the wife and once with his teenage boy, and several times just by himself.
Sure they really are a funny looking little dog, with no tail they are often referred to as Bunny butts. They are unbelievably smart dogs and can be trained to do almost anything. Below is an excerpt from an email that we received from a lady that got one of our puppies Tessie, she just turned 1 yr old this week. I paste this to show what you can get if you work with a Corgi and show them positive reaffirmation.
So ... some of the things that Tessie will do. Rather than general dog hand signals for these, I have been teaching her American Sign Language, because my hope is that some day she will be able to do a bit of time as a reading dog, or another type of service work. So in the chance that she is around a deaf person, I want them to be able to communicate with her. These are things that she knows the ASL sign for:
Sit, Down, Stand, Roll Over, Turn (to the left), Twirl (to the right), Stay, Pay Attention, Drop It, Speak, Over (as in jump over an object), Under (go under an object), Come and No, which I don't like to use a lot, but it's there if I need it.
Then a few things that there isn't an ASL sign for, or the sign isn't really helpful: Shake, Bang (she falls over and plays dead), Wait (like 'stay', but with 'stay' she remains where she is until I come back to her, and with 'wait', she just pauses where she is until she gets further instructions), and Leave It. Also, she knows the difference between Left and Right. This was one of the things I taught her after I had run out of cute tricks. I hold both fists in front of her and ask 'Which is left?' or 'Which is right?' and she (usually) nudges the correct one with her nose. I taught her to know them from her perspective, so if she is facing me, then my left hand is her 'right' and my right hand is her 'left'. She's generally pretty accurate, even if I hold a treat in the opposite hand that I am asking for. Heel, although this one still needs work. When she's focused and we are doing something, she is fine. But she does need better leash manners, because she is so rarely on a leash. Inside, (when I am going out the door and want her to stay in the house, I tell her 'inside' so she doesn't try to rush out the door. Also, 'wait' is most used at the door, because for a while we were having issues with her running out, then turning back and jumping on Eifie when he tried to get out the door. So now she waits until he goes first, then she goes). Front, which is a rally obedience command, which means that she comes around to face me. Quiet/Thank you. When she's barking at something, I let her have a few barks, because it's only polite ... she IS trying to alert me to something. Then if the barking goes on a bit too long, I thank her for the alert and tell her 'quiet'. Sometimes I just need the 'thank you' and sometimes I have to add 'quiet'. It works, but with her clever little mind, she sometimes will then bark just so that I will tell her to be quiet, so that she can be quiet and get a treat. Night-night is when it is time for her to go into her room at bedtime. It is also helpful when it is the last walkies of the evening, because I can tell her 'night-night walkies' and she knows that whatever she needs to do before bed, she should get done, because she isn't going to have another chance before morning. Walkies/Outside aren't really commands or anything, but she definitely knows the words when I say them. She has a fairly large vocabulary, but I think those are her favorite words. Also Up the Stairs/Down the Stairs, because she sometimes has a way of being RIGHT under your feet. I didn't want mom to trip on her when on the stairs, so I taught Tessie those, to keep a path cleared.
Two things that she does not yet do without cheater signals are Say Yes (she is supposed to nod) and Bow.
Then there are two ASL signs that don't have an action that I expect from her, but that she knows. Good (or 'good girl') and Love You. I just sign 'good' to her when she has done something correctly, the same way I would say it, or somebody who uses clicker training would click. Then I sign 'love you' if she's not doing anything particularly good or 'correct', but is just being her loveable self. The difference in the two is just that when I taught her 'good', I gave her treat rewards and praise so that she knows it means she has done something right. I signed 'love you' before giving her pats and affection, so that she knows it's just an expression of how I feel about her.
As I said, she does have a huge vocabulary, so really, there are a lot of other things that she knows, but aren't particularly tricks or specific actions. Or, there are sentences that she knows like 'find the wubba and bring it here' or 'pick it up, bring it here, now drop it'. I feel as though I am forgetting some things. But these are the basics.
The classes:
I was so, so lucky to find this place in Bellingham; Tails-a-Wagging. Thus far, Tessie has had Kindergarten and Puppy Prep School there, and is currently taking Rally Obedience. I think a lot of people view things like puppy kindergarten as some fancy schmancy useless waste of time for people who want to treat their dogs like children. I admit I even had a much different view of it before going in. It's so much more than what the name suggests, though. It should be called 'Learning how to get the best out of your dog, bond with your dog, plus crucial socialization'. Of course, that's a long name and doesn't sound as cute as Puppy Kindergarten. The only reason I signed Tessie up for the class is because living where I do, she just doesn't have a chance to interact with other dogs (other than Eifie), and I know how incredibly important it is. So while I had this entire 'I've trained all my other dogs and I can train this one as well' attitude, I wanted her to have the play time that they get at the start of each class.
Some good girl indeed. Below is a link to the winner of the herding group in the 2009 Eukanuba dog show. We are not show dog people but I always notice when a Corgi is featured in them. Even the Queen has Corgis, a bunch of them.
.http://animal.discovery.com/convergence/eukanuba/akcchampionship/vote/vote.html
The blue flowers are camas. I just couldn't remember the name when I posted the picture. They were growing in this meadow with the oak trees. There is a creek just over the hill and there once was a huge Indian encampment on a rise across the creek. This meadow is the only place I have seen the camas growing down here. The Indians may have transplanted bulbs from somewhere else to grow here. There are Sego lillies here as well but they will bloom later. I think the Indians ate them too. We have seen Sego lillies up in the Bagdad area. They are profuse in Utah. We have found a lot of arrowheads in this area.
Just had to get a picture of this oak reaching for the clouds just before a storm started to roll in.
