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Comment by Patty & Frodo and Crystal CWCs on May 14, 2009 at 10:33am

I think stairs are ok in small doses, but you might want to post that question on one of the health forums. We have no stairs, so I never really worried MUCH about it, although when he was young I'd carry him DOWN the few stairs we ran across. However, it's good to have him do it on occasion, I think, especially once he's slightly bigger, since I think sometimes corgis have trouble with stairs if they don't learn them early. (Frodo hasn't had trouble when he's run across them, but he's a BIG corgi - 40 lbs...) I know though that a lot of people told me no couches or chairs, or at least no jumping DOWN. Rather than letting him jump up and always lifting him down, I just didn't let him up at all. Then again, I was raised with german shepherds so am used to being pretty cautious about backs. None of Frodo's line has had back problems, so hopefully it won't be an issue....

Farley is a cute name too :) It took a LONG time to come up with 'Frodo' for a name! Turned out his grandfather was named 'Bilbo' (AKC name 'C-Myste There and Back Again') so it made sense for him to be Frodo (AKC name 'Ffallian's Ring-Bearer'). It took us about 2 weeks to come up with 'Mokey' for the youngest cat. So, don't worry, names are tricky :)

Comment by Amy & Miles on May 13, 2009 at 3:08pm

Good cat advice - LOL. My tolerant one bopped him on the head when he got too irritating, and he has been pretty careful around him ever since. The name has now been changed to Farley and there it will stay. I am much better with that, but Cady was a cute nickname (too late now - sigh - I have always been name-challenged). Glad you mentioned that about their backs. He's hopping up the stairs - learned it overnight, but we can't let him do it unsupervised, so we blocked them off (but supervised, we thought it was cute, so that will stop now).

Comment by Patty & Frodo and Crystal CWCs on May 13, 2009 at 11:16am

My sofa and chairs are still SUPPOSED to be dog-free zones - corgis shouldn't jump up and down on high things until they are about a year and a half old, to prevent problems with their back developing. (Or so I kept being told.) Therefore, we never taught him he could go up. Now, at a year and a half in age, he seems to have decided that he is old enough to jump up, and does on occasion. ;) Still, that helped a great deal, too, as the cats could hop away from him very easily. Now they care less, but it took a long time. The cats will adjust, but it takes time. Glad you have one that is friendly, and one that tolerates. That's a pretty good ratio so far! I started with one that was friendly/very tolerant, and four that were afraid of him and avoided him like the plague. After 3 weeks my youngest joined the friendly/tolerant group... and the other three have only started coming around in the last couple of months, a YEAR later. I just told them, too bad! Get used to it! :) They eventually did. (I was raised with both cats and dogs so knew they'd get along eventually.) I do referee, to this day, the dog's behavior. My rule is that if the cat starts to hiss, he's done playing with them. At that time he's called away. He thinks that being slapped is playing, so unless they actually claw him, which nobody has done - or truly bite him, which also nobody has done, he doesn't 'get' the whole cat-body-language of 'leave me alone!' Still, even though he's now 40 lbs, he's never hurt them, and they've never hurt him. It works out. :)

I think 'Caden' is cute, and you could call him 'Cady' for short... that's cute too :) A friend of mine on here as an adorable pem named Cady.....

Comment by Amy & Miles on May 12, 2009 at 4:57pm

Right now, the upstairs, sofas and chairs are dog-free zones. Of the cats, one is very genial, one tolerates him, one is scared of him, and one just avoids him entirely. So, he doesn't really have much in the way of cat interactions. He wants to bark and play with them, but they are a bit disdainiful of this behavior. He probably wishes he had another dog friend to hang out with.
We are crate training, and today was the first day we left him for a few hours - he did great and slept through the night last night also (I feel like I'm talking about a baby there). The name is currently Caden (a variation of which means champion in Welsh, according to my husband), but I am just not thrilled with it. I would have preferred some cute name like Teddy or Farley. Since I chose the breed and the dog, I guess I can't have everything.

Comment by Patty & Frodo and Crystal CWCs on May 12, 2009 at 10:23am

Er, I meant the cats have a DOG-free zone, but I assume you know what I meant :)

Comment by Patty & Frodo and Crystal CWCs on May 12, 2009 at 10:22am

Well, now he needs a name! :) When introducing Frodo to the cats (and still now to this day, actually) I put up a gate. At first I put up a chair so the cats could jump to the chair and out (or in), while Frodo the puppy stared mournfully. Later, I bought a gate with a cat-sized pass-through - but it turned out that he could squeeze through, too, so I had to actually modify the gate myself to make the pass-through much narrower. That worked - plus he eventually learned that he had to stay on the other side of the gate unless invited. That helps, since that way the cats have a cat-free zone! Sounds like your cats are better than mine were - Frodo was a bit older and barked at the cats, and after that most of them wouldn't come around for months....

If you are crate-training, that will help too - both in housetraining (and it helps IMMENSELY!!!! look up some stuff on it if you've never done it, it's NOT 'mean'), and in giving the cats another non-hostile time to view him.

He's just totally adorable!!! :) Now you need a name :)

Comment by DR, Nala & Simon on May 9, 2009 at 7:56pm

Congrats!!! He is adorable!!! Treasure him, he is going to give you tons of love and happy memories.