Oppy's almost 2 years old now and I can't help but think he looks a little different than other Pembrokes. We got him from a breeder and met his mother who is a Pembroke but didn't meet the father (he's AKC certified, so I have no doubts about it). Oppy generally seems a little taller and has bigger ears than most other pb corgis. The tail (which wasn't docked when he was born)…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on September 16, 2010 at 11:07am —
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Today is Oppy's 1st birthday! It's amazing to see how far he's come since we first picked him up at 10 weeks old. He's getting a special doggie cake and a new bone later tonight. Unfortunately it'll be dark by the time both of us get home, so we can't take him to a park or anything (he had tons of excitement over the long weekend though and was totally crapped out last night when we finally got home). Hurray for getting…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on November 30, 2009 at 10:30am —
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About 2 months ago we started letting Oppy sleep in bed with us. I was pretty against it at first because I'm a finicky sleeper and tend to roll around a lot. It was tough enough getting used to sleeping with another person, now add a dog that will just stare at you if you ask it to roll over. Despite my skepticism, he's done very well. He finds the spot between mine and Hilliary's feet and curls up down there not bothering either of us. Just 2 weeks or so ago he started doing something a…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on November 12, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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Oppy's just over 10 months now and we've been starting to trust him more and more being alone while we're gone. If we just had to run to the store, we've been testing leaving him out of his crate, and he's been very good. Over the weekend we went up to Hilliary's parents' cabin, and while there we went to the Bloomsburg fair. We decided to try to leave him out there while we were gone. We were gone about 9 hours and we came back to no accidents or anything destroyed! The only thing is that he…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on October 5, 2009 at 9:36am —
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Oppy is going to be 9 months old on Saturday and I was thinking it may be time to start working on not using his crate while we're at work (he'd be alone for approximately 6.5-7 hours). We've tested leaving him alone while we go to the grocery store which usually lasts about an hour or so and he's been doing really well as long as we puppy proof everything (make sure there's nothing on our desks that he can reach/steal/shred). But 6.5 hours is a lot longer than what we've currently tested him…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on August 27, 2009 at 10:38am —
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Oppy absolutely loves his soft toys, but he also loves to destroy them. We just bought him a toy duck from Petco and he's already ripped the foot off and the beak open. His longest lasting toy was actually a stuffed penguin from a local carnival that wasn't even a dog toy. But alas, he killed that too. Does anyone have any suggestions for some really tough plush toys that he won't be able to tear apart within the first couple of days?
Added by Matt & Hilliary on August 19, 2009 at 12:38pm —
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Oppy has a habit of destroying even some of the toughest toys, so we decided to take him to PetSmart to pick out a new frisbee and a bone. While we were in the store, one employee came up to him and started petting him and letting Oppy give him kisses. He asked if Oppy was a Cardigan or maybe a mix. We just looked at him with weird faces, because our little man is obviously a Pembroke. The reason he thought this was because Oppy's tail isn't docked, so he's got the full thing to wag. Other than…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on July 27, 2009 at 9:30am —
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So Optimus is just over 6 months old now. So far he's been a great puppy (with a few minor exceptions), but the one thing that stands out most is his desire to be around me and Hilliary. If one of us gets up and walks into another room, he follows. If we move from the couch to our desks, he follows. He even has the habit of getting under your feet, so you practically fall trying not to step on him. He's such an affectionate little guy, we love him so much :)…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on June 11, 2009 at 10:03am —
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Optimus is nearly 5 months old now and he still bites at our hands if there's no toys anywhere nearby. They're just play bites, but he still hasn't lost all his baby teeth yet, so they're still pretty sharp. Everyone keeps saying he'll outgrow it, but I'm wondering if it's something that we really need to start conditioning him against. We hold his mouth shut for about 10 seconds when we can, but he's very quick and catching him is sometimes hard. Not to mention he thinks we're just playing.…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on April 22, 2009 at 10:13am —
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Optimus is just over 4 months old now and he's recently starting barking a LOT. It's usually because he wants us to play with him, but we can't always do that when HE wants to. We also live in an apartment so we really can't just ignore him and hope he stops (which he doesn't). We've tried holding his mouth shut, but he just thinks we're playing and he pounces at our hands with his tail wagging after we let go. We really need to lessen his barking, any tips?
Added by Matt & Hilliary on April 5, 2009 at 12:01pm —
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Optimus is getting pretty good about not going inside anymore (he's about 3.5 months old now). We even put him on these pills we got from Petco to help him stop eating his own poo. The only real problem we're having is that he's not really telling us when he needs to go out yet. We can tell when he starts sniffing around a certain way, it's time to go out, but we need something more obvious than that in case we're busy with something and can't keep a constant eye on him. We have 2 doors in our…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on March 17, 2009 at 10:00am —
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It's about time! We've had Optimus for almost a month now. Over the past 2 days he's only peed in the house once, and it was my fault (Hilliary was at class and I was focused on fixing her computer [stupid Vista...]). He's actually been a very good boy the last 2 days too. His biting has gone down quite a bit as well. We're really not doing anything different, I think he's just finally starting to learn! We're so proud of him!
On a separate note, as of yesterday, his second ear is…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on February 25, 2009 at 10:00am —
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So Oppy is almost 12 weeks now and it seems like he hasn't made any progress with the potty training. He never messes in his crate, and he has not pooped in the house yet, but he keeps peeing all over the place. We take him outside when he starts sniffing around and he'll pee once or twice while we're out. When he goes outside he gets a piece of treat and a "good boy". 10-15 minutes after coming inside, he'll pee on the carpet. Most of the time we don't catch him because it's hard to tell when…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on February 18, 2009 at 7:42pm —
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Ok, so last night I took Optimus out our back door which is a sliding glass door. After he's done doing his thing, we head back inside. Optimus hops up the single step and smacks right into the glass door. I was worried for a sec, but after he didn't even let out a whimper, I couldn't help but laugh. Needless to say he's learned his lesson and he takes that step a little slower now.
Added by Matt & Hilliary on February 4, 2009 at 1:21pm —
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It's true. Optimus will pretty much choose me to nibble on/bite over any of his toys. So far he has a rope, a kong (the red rubbery things), a frisbee, a hedgehog, 2 tennis balls (extra strength), and a frisbee. Even with all those, I'm more fun to eat I guess. Is this just a puppy thing? He's only 9.5 weeks old and he's still learning quite a bit. I'm trying to substitute a toy whenever he starts biting me, but it only works about 25-50% of the time. It's not really bad now, but it's just…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on February 4, 2009 at 9:41am —
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Last night Optimus finally came home with us! He is so adorable and fluffy and cuddle, and just a real sweetheart. He loves giving kisses and little play bites. He seems partially house trained already, which is a huge relief. He'll sniff around a lot and whine a bit when he's ready to go out (if we don't realize in time though, he'll pee on the carpet :p). Anyways, after we take him out to go potty he like romping around outside. One of his favorite things he's found so far are pine cones. I'm…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on February 1, 2009 at 10:51am —
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So tomorrow we're finally going to pick up Optimus and bring him home with us. I'm beyond excited about it, the last 9 weeks have been hell knowing that we have an adorable corgi puppy waiting for us to settle into our new apartment. So far I've read 2 books:…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on January 30, 2009 at 9:32am —
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Ok, so after googling it a bit, I really haven't been able to find any dog parks in my area. I'm about 15 miles north of Philadelphia, PA. There's a bunch of parks actually in the city, but that's a bit of a hassle to go into the city for. I was hoping someone might know of a good place outside of Philadelphia, possibly even in western New Jersey where I might be able to take Optimus. Or, does anyone know a good site for locating dog parks? I tried zootoo.com but their site seemed buggy and…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on January 28, 2009 at 2:15pm —
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We were so excited to finally be going back to the breeder to visit our puppy. Only 2 more weeks until we're able to bring him home with us! These are some adorable pictures of him and then a picture of two of his sisters.
More photos:
http://www.mycorgi.com/photo/albums/6-weeks-old
Added by Matt & Hilliary on January 12, 2009 at 4:00pm —
3 Comments
Ok, so before we go pick up our new puppy in January, we need to finish getting all the essentials. This includes bowls and a brush mainly. Anyways, the dog's name is going to be Optimus (after the transformer, yeah I'm a dork). Anyawys, I went to cafepress.com and created a dog bowl with his name and a symbol from the Transformers TV show. I ordered it, but the next morning I found out that I had to cancel it because the image was copyrighted. I really like the design I made and I really want…
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Added by Matt & Hilliary on December 11, 2008 at 4:56pm —
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