I just got back from the vet with Alice and the news is not good.



The egg-sized lump near her hip is cancer. It seems to be growing into her abdominal wall, and that combined with her age make surgery a less-than-promising option. The vet said the cancer is very aggressive; the cells were dividing like crazy under the microscope.



She drained a large amount of bloody fluid off the site. My sweet princess was an absolute angel and did not put up a fuss. She gave her a shot… Continue

I know this has nothing to do with Corgis, but we do have some cat owners here.



I have a vet appointment this afternoon and I am very worried.



My elderly (16+ year old) cat seems to have sprouted a large growth overnight. One day it was not there and the next day it was huge. It's the size of two golf balls or so and it's directly in front of her hip when she is standing. When she lays down her hip slides forward and the mass seems to go behind her hip.



When I… Continue

In which a forecasted "coating to an inch" of snow turns into a five-inch storm, the Corgis meet a new friend, and my husband edits together a short one-minute video of the fun....





We never saw this dog before, but she was only 6 months old and was instantly a playmate.



My favorite spot is about 35 seconds in. And all the "good-boying" and "good-girling" in the middle is because they responded to my emergency recall in mid-play! Hence my not… Continue

I'm so excited! I've been wanting to get Jack into agility for awhile now. I was going back and forth between that and herding, but have been unable to find a herding instructor. So yesterday I e-mailed a local agility instructor. I had asked my vet for a referral to an agility trainer and was given her name, and she also happened to be our CGC/TDI evaluator.



It turns out she has a class that just started Thursday, so I only missed one. They use an indoor horse arena in the winter… Continue

While we were out playing with the dogs, Maddie rolled in something. Based on how her fur smelled when she came in, I'd say that something small died, and then something larger peed on it.



I think that in the world of Dogdom, that's the equivalent of winning the PowerBall. She was so proud!



Needless to say, two dogs had baths this evening.

Madison was not happy.…

Continue

Two dogs, two crates. You would not think it would be that difficult.



Jack's crate has been in our breakfast nook since we brought him home. When he was younger, we had his exercise pen in there too, but we put that away when he no longer needed it.



When Maddie came to live with us, we set the exercise pen back up in the breakfast nook so she'd have some more space to move around, since we needed to keep them separated when no one was home. We left it up through her spay… Continue

And to think I was concerned that Maddie was not warming up to Jack.

For the longest time she did not really want to play with him, and now the past two weeks while I had to limit her activity while she healed from her spay, I had trouble keeping them off each other. I finally gave up over the weekend and let them wrestle a little; her stitches are nearly ready to come out and the incision looks… Continue

Where does the time go?



This entry isn't about a Corgi, or even a dog.



My cat, Alice, just had her annual vet exam today. She turned 16 sometime in the spring. I am not sure of the exact date, since I found her under a hedge when she was around 6 weeks old. A tiny half-wild thing, it took me a week of feeding her to bribe her out from under the hedge far enough so I could catch her, and she spent another week or so after that living under my bed and only coming out to eat… Continue

Spring in this part of the country leaves something to be desired (unless you're a big fan of mud), but autumn is splendid.



Despite some threatening skies, we took the dogs hiking today. We were going to go to a spot in the woods, but we had heavy rain yesterday so we opted for our favorite ridge-top instead. Unfortunately we were a bit careless in reading the map (I think we'd be an embarrassment to John, Al, and Gwynnie!!), and instead of the trail we wanted (the one with the view)… Continue

Learning to sit may not seem like such a huge accomplishment. Jack, after all, knows a couple dozen commands and will learn a new one in a couple training sessions, as long as it makes sense to him. And I've been teaching emergency recall (thanks to the people here who made me realize how important it is), and in a day or two they both learned that my recall word ("recall," how original!) meant very tasty treats and they'll both come running.



But sit? In Maddie's "former life" she… Continue

Does your Corgi love the water?



Jack has always loved the water. He is thrilled to splash into any stream or puddle he can find. However, he won't go in past here:

He knows how to swim but is reluctant to do so. Our own mistake, because despite the fact that we socialized him to all manner of things, we never took him somewhere where we could wade in the water with him and encourage him to swim. Admittedly, such places are… Continue

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1921614-1,00.html





Dogs, unlike much-smarter chimps, are very good at reading human signals and gestures, as we are all aware! This article contains some interesting insights as to why that is. It mentions the fox study that John posted awhile ago.



"The Russians began by breeding a group of foxes according to one simple rule: they would walk up to a cage and put a hand on the bars. Foxes that slunk back in fear and… Continue

We were walking Jack in the park today. He was leashed, on his regular 6-foot lead, and he was walking nicely on a loose leash. We were near an access road and a food concession stand, and there was a family standing around with three dogs; the apparent father with a pug and another small dog, mom, and a few kids. One of the kids was a girl who looked about 10, and she had a big bear of a black dog on a leash; he probably went about 65 pounds.



We were walking past them, but not close… Continue

Perhaps not what you think.



Here's a not-so-chubby Jackpot:

When Jack was one, we had him for his checkup and we put him on the scales and he weighed in at a whopping 35 pounds. My husband and I kept looking at each other, saying "Is he fat? He doesn't look fat. But 35 pounds for a Corgi... that sounds fat!" Ah, but the vet assured us he was not fat. He's just big-boned! LOL



Anyway, we went back in April for… Continue

The weather has been horrible this June, and we have not been able to enjoy any of our usual summer activities. However, today we managed to sneak in a hike between thunder storms. We took a trip to the new Nature Conservancy preserve on Moosic Mountain, and checked out one of their lovely trails.



It's a very unique habitat. We usually hike in the woods, but this is a ridge-top heath barren. Nice views, odd landscape of ferns, mountain laurel, and wintergreen mixed with some stunted… Continue

Well, today was the big day! We had our first nursing home visit, and we had a great time



Jack is our two-year-old Pembroke Welsh Corgi. I decided when he was still a pup that I wanted to do Therapy Dog work with him. Lest there be any confusion, Therapy Dogs are NOT assistance dogs. They are the dogs that go visit at nursing homes and schools to provide some joy and comfort to the people there.



Jack has always been a sociable little guy. We live near a large busy park, so… Continue