Welcome Valerie and Duchess!

What a wonderful and lucky person you are to have "inherited" Duchess.  My Dad developed Alzheimers in his early seventies and my brother moved in to take care of him and his dog Lucky !  After my Dad died last January my brother became the happy owner of Lucky and has had to deal with a few pet related issues, but mostly things have gone smoothly.  Our Corgi (Winston) always weighed on the high side and I'm determined for our next Corgi to stay at the proper weight.  The only reason Duchess is chubby is because of the table feeding and as others have mentioned, perhaps your sweet, well meaning mother fed according to the feeding guidelines on the bag.  We are now feeding our dogs grain free dog food and I highly recommend it.  Dogs need a good amount of protein in their diets and Corgis especially do not need a higher intake of food than is absolutely necessary.  Therefore, the higher the quality of protein they're getting, and the less fillers, the better.  Mine eat pumpkin cubes made from canned pumpkin (sans the sugar) and baby carrots for treats.   As a rule of thumb, and perhaps some others on MyCorgi might have a better suggestion, you can take your dog's weight, divide by 2.2, multiply times 30 and add 70 and that's the number of calorie she should eat in a day, divided into two meals.  So, a 38 pound dog's caloric intake would be calculated as:  38 divided by 2.2 = 17.27 X 30 = 518 plus 70 = 588 calories.  For most higher quality, lower in carbs, no grain, higher in protein dog foods, that would equate to about 1 1/4 cups of food per day TOTAL.  It seems like it's not enough, but it is. The food we feed ours is 454 calories per cup.  Actually, since you want to reduce her weight you'd want to feed slightly less than 588 calories a day.  If she's not losing after a couple of weeks reduce the kibble a little bit more.  I always add green beans to the food so they feel like they're getting more.  I'm certainly not a Corgi expert by any means, but if you have any questions feel free to email me.  If I don't know the answer I'll help you find one.  Welcome to MyCorgi !  Joyce

Welcome Valerie.  Duchess is a beauty.  I am so glad you have decided to keep her.  She can't help but herd so if your other dogs don't mind.  They will all be happy.