My puppy's breeder keeps adding updated photos to her website, and now my little darling can be seen chowing down on a tiny stuffed cow toy. Awwwwwww! The herding instinct already in evidence!

So -- on with the tale, not to be confused with a tail, which, of course, Pembroke Welsh corgis don't have. Our second corgi was Merry Sherry, and truly, she was a great dog.

Sherry was an outdoor dog except for when she had puppies or when she was recovering from an injury. Yep. We let Sherry have puppies, and we kept her outdoors in an unfenced yard. I'm telling you, the 70's were like a totally barbaric time period!

I don't know how many litters Sherry had -- I know there was at least one litter of purebred corgis, and there was a litter of absolutely adorable mutts, but that's as much as I can remember. I do know that by the time I was 8, Sherry was spayed. She was a great mother, but genetically, the puppies tended to be delicate. We gave a purebred corgi to a friend of the family, and another one to Uncle Buddy, but other than that, Sherry's breeding days were over.

And man, I have missed puppies ever since. Not making that up. Wish I had a litter of puppies with me right now. There's nothing like it in the world.

[Total bunny trail: Mr. Dally, the friend who got a corgi pup of his own, was a gifted carpenter with a big, white pick-up truck and more than one dog. He built a truckbed podium for his corgi so she could stand at the same height as the other dogs in the back of the pick-up truck. That was one spoiled dog!]

Sherry, in the meantime, was busy taking over the world. Reading here about bossy female corgis cracks me up -- it 'splains a lot about my second corgi! She followed me to town on Saturdays when I was going to the dime store for candy. She herded everything that crossed her path. Sherry even tried to keep the traffic on our street under control.

Cars were exactly as receptive to being herded as you would think. Sherry's pelvis was broken twice in this pursuit. Did we learn our lesson and start keeping her inside? No. It was the 70's. It was the South. I can't explain it or excuse it -- I can just say that that was the way it was. Sherry chewed the bottom shelf of an antique buffet during her boredom while arthritis settled into her hip joints.

When we were moving from Georgia to Tennessee, Sherry, in pain and confusion, bit one of the movers. She was old, she was in pain, and she had just bitten someone. I was at camp and missed the whole thing, but I bawled my eyes out when I found out that Sherry had been euthanized. She had been a remarkable dog and I missed her badly.

Fortunately, it wasn't too many months before... Well, that's Part 3.

Thanks to everyone who told me about the genesis of this magnificent site! I'm still absolutely loving it. Sam and Silvia rock!