Social Seven: Teggie's 7th Week Is About Learning to Be a Dog

Teggie is doing well, as you can see…

Temperament

OK, I have history of selecting (or being selected by) hyper dogs. Now, a police dog needs to be very high energy, but the perfect Pembroke Welsh Corgi personality is eager, happy, bold and sensitive.

We want a baby-love, a sweet girl who won’t come undone by our energy and active lifestyle (in other words, not shy), and who likes to “just hang” once in a while, lay on the floor with my son while he conquers Civ IV on his laptop, sigh meaningfully with me as I read a novel… I think we are the right family for Teggie.

I will train her with the help of Courteous Canine, which should solve just about any behavior issues, but the original temperament is so important… She should be fully socialized (puppy-wise) by our next visit, and we will administer more of the puppy temperament tests detailed at Veterinary Partner.com.

This visit, she came up to us, let us do whatever we wanted with her, and demonstrated curiosity about noises and playfulness with toys… She whined once: her fluffy brother went to investigate the SUV that pulled up in the drive and she didn’t want to go all the way to the fence with him. She loves that fluffy boy!

Please watch these videos and let me know what you think. The other pups in Teggie’s litter are all spoken for now—or the fluffy would be coming home with us, too!

Incidentally, the breeder thinks Teggie is a nice fit for our family. She also thinks any of that litter would do just fine for us. The video of Miss Priss, Teg's mother, proves her wonderful and sweet. We visited Harry Potter, Teg's father, as well, and he is a doll.

Another Puppy Aptitude Test

Videos of Teggie and her Corgi Family

Miss Priss shows her agility...




The pups play when mom leads the way...




Teggie kisses her boy before her nap...



I will post more videos on my page at MyCorgi.com.

Teggie Tuggy

We visited our girl today.

At first, she was sleepy from a day of play... then she invented a game of tug!

Probably The Red One...

This is probably Teggie.

I want to know who does her brows!





More photos--and hopefully video--in a week!

Say This Three Times Fast: I Heart Cathy's Corgi Art & Classy Chassy's Sassy Corgi Cards

After framing and hanging lots of paintings and prints that were piling up for months, it's time to expand our Corgi art collection again. It's fun to search for Corgi art online--please let me know if you make any!

I (finally) found Cathy Santarsiero's The Christmas Corgi. She is an amazing artist, and paints adorable Corgis. Check out the "Mad Scientists", where Corgis in lab coats appear busy creating Tesla's lightning and performing curious lab experiments. My science-loving son truly appreciates this piece (it activates his funny bone) so it has found a place in our collection.

Her agility pieces are my next target--there are several in the nub-loving agility series. In "Agility Corgis Gone Wild", Cathy explains that "performance Corgis took over the course while their owners were reportedly distracted by Cosmopolitans and Chocolate Martinis, although this can not be confirmed. A Conga line was started by 2 non-qualifiers. Jump bars were intentionally knocked down to serve as impromptu limbo poles." --See why I love her?

As I have mentioned before, ClassyChassy has excellent Corgi cards. In my experience, even quick and simple correspondence brings big grins when sent with Corgi smiles like these. I use place card holders to display my favorites on my bookshelf.

I found comical cards, including a Corgi splat in which the little furkid is so far into the kibble bag, only the famous Corgi butt is visible. You can bet that butt's going on the bookshelf display! Plus, ClassyChassy donates 10% of her sales to the Lakeshore Welsh Corgi Rescue. How cool is that?!?

As famous among Corgi lovers as these talented women are, they don't necessarily need my promotion here, but I could not help gushing just a little...

Just thought I would toss up a photo of Teggie's nursery. Turns out reading the directions saves a lot of cursing the engineers of that Pet Gear crate. But it has a neat handle on the right with a comfort grip so that it can be rolled around with ease, it has the garage door feature which just "snaps into place" during assembly...if you let your son do it for you...and it comes with a lovely plush liner.

The garage door slides all the way in, but I wanted to show off that feature. You can open the top, too, to drop the Corgi in if she's not too keen on the crate at first, I guess. But leaving one side open and offering it as a Corgi bed appeals to me, and there is no crate door sticking out to bang my shins on... Perfect!

If you have not already seen it, go watch Gibson the Corgi win Tug-O-War against the Lab. Priceless!

The Corgi Fountain of Youth: Drink, Nap, and Be Lazy...

Soon Teggie will be drinking from the fountain! For a mom who values the natural child philosophy, our furkid sure is a material girl!

Honestly, I think our first Corgi might have invented this Dog-It Drinking Fountain years ago, when she pawed the water out of her dish and flipped it over every time I filled it... then drank out of my decorative fountain unless I stashed it on the bathroom counter. Now our little herder will have the time of her life licking ever-fresh, oxygen-rich, filtered water. Sure beats lapping out of the toilet bowl!

Check out this doggie drinking fountain, and the cute video of lots of Labs a-lapping. Our baby is small, so she will have to lick up the spillage, I guess. Anyway, it will be fun to watch, and we have extended family with chocolate Labs in case it turns out to be a lame idea for a dwarf dog.

We have finally framed my two new favorite Evie originals, "Royal Nap" and "Bean Bag Blob" by Evie Anderson, who paints her Corgi girls, Chloe and Gwenevere. I think these pieces exemplify why I want a dog's life. If I believed in reincarnation, I'd be working on building enough good karma to come back as a Corgi!

"God's In His Heaven"...

She is Puppy Poetry...


Tonight the "sullen wind" has stretched my longing to its limits. Are the little ones doing well in the cool spell we're having in Florida? How is our Tegwen fairing? I have been wondering... Then these photos arrived tonight, and although we do not know if we will bring home this baby or one of the Tri's, she warmed my heart with her sable coat on such a blustery night.

Our first Corgi girl was a Black-headed Tricolor Pembroke Welsh Corgi. This is from the final infrared photos I was able to develop from my film camera, and my favorite photo of her. What a little princess she was in her bed of clover!

Birch frame from DA Custom Frames

Which baby? We just cannot decide. We wish all three. I promise to post photos from our next visit this week. Now that their little personalities are emerging, they should make amazing shots. Meanwhile, how lovely to curl up with a photo of a puzzled puppy who could be ours... "All 's right with the world!"

*With apologies to Robert Browning, who captured the strong feelings we have for our Corgi baby!



For a print of Tasha Tudor's illustration of Robert Browning's "Pippa's Song", or Tasha's Corgis--or perhaps a handmade Corgi cookie cutter!--visit her family's shop.

Soon, like Emily Dickinson I will say, "I started Early - Took my Dog - And visited the Sea -"

Corgi Toys! I'm Happy Just Imagining All the Fun We'll Be Having...

Tegwen, You Lucky Dog!

When my son was just a sparkle in my eye, he had a basket full of handmade toys. I waited until he had been on the way for almost a month before I bought the crib. And so it is with Tegwen. She turned three weeks old, so I bought out the toy store.

In the Waldorf tradition, simple silk scarves and wooden stick gnomes created an ideal learning environment for our human baby; but for our furkid, it's Einstein all the way! Stimulating toys suitable for a Corgi now include an array of seek-activating squeakers, tuggers and tennis ball launchers from fabulous companies such as Hyper and Kyjen. I supported a locally-owned business, only to find the toys a bit cheaper online, so you may want to start there if you like what you see here.

The Essentials of Play and Seeking
According to Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson, authors of Animals in Translation, who recently wrote Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals, dogs, who are descended from the nomadic wolves, which is perhaps why they have "high SEEKING needs," never really grow up, so need to PLAY a lot. "If you can afford it," says Grandin, " you should buy plenty of toys for your dog, and you should rotate the toys...Old toys are boring; new toys are fun. That's the rule. You should also play with your dog every day."


Love to be told to shop, and play with my puppy! Here is the short list of our first choices:
:: Kyjen
Egg and Babies Hedgehog (puppies can dig out the squeaky eggs)
Hide A Squirrel (watch a Schnauzer put them back in the tree stump)
Hard Boiled Softies Hedgehog (Great grunting removable rubber core, Batman!)
Fleecy Cleans Fling 'N Floss (wipes those teeth and gums clean)
:: Hyper
Doggie Driver (FORE the golfer to launch those tennis balls)
Dent-A-Tug (another "better breath, cleaner teeth" training toy)



Finally, Tegwen needs a ball like Gibson's. Watch Gibson herd his ball at Corgi Butts.

And don't forget Sunday is the last day to register to win a free dog toy from Expressly Corgi!