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Permalink Reply by Sam on October 31, 2007 at 6:01pm

I too have added a "mature" corgi to my crew. He is a blue merle cardigan corgi that came to our program in June. This boy came with a multitude of medical issues. He was drastically underweight, suffered major hair loss, stunk to high heavens, had a broken tail, had bilateral eye and ear infections and most crippling arthritis. He is missing part of an ear, is quite visually impaired and totally deaf. In spite of it all he has a spark in his hazy blue eyes and seemed thankful to know he had a regular meal coming and a place to lay his tired bones. He was so involved and I didnt know that he would ever be ready to adopt. Somehow I knew that he really wanted a chance at life so we decided to give him a chance to regain his health. Soon we named him Zen. He seemed at peace with the world, tolerant to all that crossed his path. We learned that he also had a thyroid condition. X-rays showed arthritis most everywhere and a broken tail that had never been tended to. He slowly grew a new coat, gained some weight and had life to his eyes. Being deaf has not caused him much issue as we gently touch him and he awakens and now knows the routine. He relies on the other dogs frequently. We dont know his age in years but surely he has many hard miles on his well used body.
Fast forward to October and Zen looks like a different dog. He has a new mission in life which is visiting with the children with disabilities at the school where I work. He visits regularly. He is most adored by the children and staff and has captured the hearts of many. The day is long for him. We recently bought him his very own Radio Flyer wagon to make mobility a bit easier. He took to it right away and joins us as we travel to different classes.
I have had many offers to adopt Zen since. Here he will stay. He loves life and knows the routine here. We adore him. Sometimes dogs find you for a reason. I dont know how old this boy is or what life has in store but I do know he will live here for the rest of his life. What treasure he is.

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Permalink Reply by Avyon on October 31, 2007 at 8:25pm

I think its great that there are people out there who want to adopt older animals. If I could I would hug you right now.
My heart has always gone out to them especially when I worked for a shelter and everyone just walked by them :(

Im thinking when Roxi gets older and when we are more ready we'll get her a playmate through a corgi rescue. I confess I've been bit by the corgi bug and threaten my other half with wanting a pack of corgis :)

But truthfully, I will wait patiently until I can give a true loving home to more then one pet.

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Permalink Reply by Zed on November 2, 2007 at 11:05am

Zed doesn't have as many years on him as your dogs do. He's only 1.5, or so we think. He was picked up as a stray and was looking for a home when my wife found him. I have to admit I wasn't all that interested in him based on his pictures on the shelter site. He just didn't look happy.

My wife scheduled an appointment to go see him and told me about it later, which I wasn't happy about initially, but we went to see Zed on schedule. All the dogs in the shelter went crazy when we walked in the kennel area except for zed who just looked at me with relative indifference. We put him on a leash and walked him around outside a bit and he clung to my wife. I told her if he liked her he couldn't be that bad a dog and we agreed to take him home. As soon as we went inside and started signing the paperwork Zed started to smile. As it turns out he hates cameras and pouts when you take his picture. Flash. No flash. It doesn't matter. You have to catch him off guard or not let him know you're using a camera to get a decent picture of him.


That being said Zed has been an awesome dog. He was potty trained when we got him. He's taken very quickly to bell training. He didn't chew anything. We did find out he had early stage heartworm infestation after we got him but a few treatments later he was running around the back yard at full speed. He loves to play with his people and we didn't have any of the typical puppy issues to deal with. I would recommend rescuing an adult corgi to anyone. Part of the reason we decided to adopt was that everything I've read suggests that corgi's do well in adoption situations. They're smart enough to realize that whatever happened before is done and they readily bond with their new pack.

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Permalink Reply by Melissa on December 1, 2007 at 12:32am

We adopted a corgi at the age of 12.... we were at the vet and were walking out of the exam room when someone from corgi rescue was waiting out front and we took one look at him and wanted him...he had very bad arthritis and dental problems and he had some attitude problems which were kind of funny....if you pet him too long he would snap at you and run away and if you didn't go after him he would come back and want to be pet again...his family gave him up after 12 years....he lived for another 4 years...sadly we had to put him to sleep this past March due to the degenerating nerves he had in his back end....he was such a great dog and to this day my family and I don't understand why anyone would give up a dog after having him for 12 years...but we gave him a great home and that is all that matters...

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