California Corgi

Dargo just got a new job. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for ways to keep the dog entertained and challenged. I decided to send him on a daily errand.

Dargo’s evening task is to go get Sean for dinner. It goes like this: I open up his pen and tell him to “go get Sean!” Since we’d introduced Dargo to “Find Sean” and “Find Sonja” pretty much as soon as we brought him home, this is a natural extension for him, and was very easy to learn. Now, given his “go get” command, Dargo just loves to run upstairs and find Sean.

It helps that Sean understands that when Dargo shows up at his desk, it means it’s time for dinner, and that he gives Dargo a piece of chicken jerky on arrival.

My next task is to figure out how Dargo might communicate or deliver specific messages. The most logical step is to introduce a PVC tube into the process in which I insert rolled up paper messages. But, I’ll be honest, we’re just not there yet with Dargo’s training. Odds are, he’d take the PVC tube and chew it until he got the paper message. Then he’d eat the paper. As far as Dargo is concerned, nothing beats paper.

Dargo loves the beach.

Water, digging, running. What’s not to love?

The great thing about running on the beach, like herding, is that it wears him out completely. He’s been napping all afternoon, which is why I’ve actually had time to post this!

And if you’re curious to know what it means to have a high energy dog, take a look at what he runs like when he’s tired.

See the difference?

Exactly!

He wouldn’t know when to stop. We have to put him in his pen so he remembers to sleep. But once he’s out, he’s out.

Christine kindly opened her home and her pigmy goat pen to her extended corgi family and friends last weekend, and Dargo couldn’t have been happier.

It was his first time encountering goats, but he knew just what to do. I could barely keep up with him.

Five days! Five vomitous days! Five terrible, vomitous days that began after 2 days of diarrhea! Our poor pup’s been on some combination of rice and medication for over a week now!

Welcome to the joys of puppyhood.

It turns out, puppies will eat anything. Add to that the incontrovertible fact that corgis, also, will eat anything, I guess it was inevitable that I should see my pup eat a cash register receipt, a little piece of red cellophane from a Christmas cracker, a cigarette filter from the sidewalk, dirt in the back yard, horse poop on the hiking trail, and pretty much anything else he can fit in his mouth.

The diarrhea started ten days ago, on Wednesday. We switched him to a bland diet and thought we would wait it out.

By Friday he was puking up bile, so we rushed him to the vet that evening. “Dietary Indiscretion” was the diagnosis. After a stomach X-Ray revealed nothing, we left with a prescription for Famotidine (Pepcid) and Carafate (another medication to soothe the stomach).

The vomiting didn’t stop, and within 2 days had progressed from consisting of mere bile to including the complete contents of his undigested and apparently un-masticated meals. The washing machine was working overtime, processing all his crate blankets, and I was getting increasingly concerned.

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The “Get your toy” command is not a classic like sit, down and stay, and I added it to my roster of early tricks on a whim.

A friend of mine who has a Border Terrier recounted to me how he had taught his dog to tell his toys from one another. I thought that would be a fun thing for Dargo to learn, and I started on it when Dargo was about 3 months. I did not anticipate how important it would become to help me manage my corgi as he grew.

Corgis were bred to think and work independently. Dargo is true to his breed, and has a strong, willful streak and a desire to be the boss. When things get out of whack, he’s sure to let me know, but that doesn’t mean he gets to be, or wants to be, CEO of the home.

Ultimately, I think he sees himself as a pro-active middle-manager. Sometimes he’s very rude about it, and it warrants a time out. But most of the time, he just needs what I call a “redirect”.

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” Maybe its much too early in the game,
But I thought I’d ask you just the same.
What are you doing New Year’s…
…New Year’s Eve?”

- Ella Fitzgerald

Dargo’s been a wonderful addition to our daily life. I actually enjoy waking up at 6am, because I know I’m going to get two to three solid hours with him before I head to the office.

Later, as the workday draws to a close, I sometimes catch myself doing 80mph on the highway beause I’m so excited about getting some playtime with Dargo in the evening.

But of course, all this doggie-time means other things get neglected, things like … say… husbands. At least one husband. My parents noticed this when they visited us for the holidays, and they pulled me aside and asked “Why don’t you and Sean go out tonight? Go out to dinner, go see a movie. We’ll look after Dargo.”

It seemed like a great idea. So headed on New Year’s Eve, all dolled up and debonair, for a movie & dinner. With our phones on vibrate, we settled into our seats for a two-hour cinematic rollercoaster.

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We brought Dargo home on the Friday after Thanksgiving. We had been looking forward to having a dog for years, but with the big changes in our lives since 2001, the logistics just took awhile to work out.

But work out they did. By the time I was apartment hunting in California in the fall of 2006, I was thrilled to find a townhouse with a little backyard where a young pup could stretch his legs, feel the sun and wind on him, and, of course, pee and poop to his heart’s content.

After months of research, we settled on a Pembroke Welsh Corgi as the right breed for us, and after a few months more we were ready to actually bring one home to be part of our family.

There are many good breeders in Northern California, and we were thrilled to find a wonderful one with a great family of dogs who had a litter at just the right time.

We met with the breeder a few times, and all felt that we would make a good match for one of the pups in the litter. So when Thanksgiving came, I drove up to Auburn with a brand new crate, collar, and soft stuffed moose that was almost as big as the pup itself. The adventure was finally beginning.

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