Morna is now almost a year old. November 27th is her birthday. She is quite a character and frequently our laughter is mixed with a quiet, to ourselves "You bugger, you!" She is VERY singleminded when she decides she wants something (particularly if the something she is pursuing is one of our cats!) My daughter's dog, Bear, who is a chow/black lab mix, works and plays well with others. This is a report card that my baby girl may never get! Despite the fact that she is the last one in, and smaller than Bear, and not too much bigger than our brother and sister act, Reggie & Freya, the cats, Morna is determined that she will be THE BOSS. Bear takes it all in stride and very seldom do I hear a growl from her other than in play.

The cats, however, have retreated to the screened in deck which they access thru a cat (or dog) door. Morna has no trouble getting thru that door, so we have unfolded her baby pen and fixed it around the door to the deck so that the cats have room to come in and jump over to the rest of the house if the coast is clear! We've had them since they were kittens. Freya is much more frightened of Morna than Reggie is... he turns around and bats Morna on the nose with his paw before he takes off. Freya just takes off. Lucky for all of us that it doesn't get too cold in Myrtle Beach, and that Morna sleeps in her crate in our bedroom, which has turned my other fur babies into nocturnal house ramblers.

Looking into Freya's eyes is just like looking at another human being. I can see the intelligence (and sometimes the mischief) that she often shows. She is very loving to my husband and me and her favorite place to lie curled up is between our desks if we are using our computers.

I would like to let her sleep in her doggie bed in our room with the door closed, but she found my under-bed storage units and I knew that she did because she brought out a piece of clothing that was in the unit... one of those things you put away because it's still good, but it doesn't quite fit you right now....???? I'm hoping that she'll get quieter as she gets older... yeah, right!!! I find myself more outspoken and up for adventure than I ever was when I had a proper job and a family to raise. Now I can do whatever I want. (Almost wanted to add, "so there!" but figured probably better not to... you all don't really know me very well yet.) How can I expect more from Morna!

I've taken some pix in the last week or so. We've been really busy with my daughter. She fell and broke her thigh bone in the spring, and had surgery to fix it. We were running back and forth to the hospital, and then to the Rehab facility which is quite a way from Myrtle Beach. After the Rehab, she went to a nursing home for about two months, and now she's home, but still having therapy at our local hospital twice a week. Morna was a really good traveler. We would take Bear and Morna with us when we were going to Florence and Dillon (both out near I-95 and about 1-1/2 hrs from our home). They helped entertain the rehab patients who weren't in therapy at the time we were there...made their rounds, so to speak. Then when we traveled to the nursing home, they were a big hit there too.

It interrupted Morna's obedience training sessions and I know we need to get started with them again. She needs to know that SHE's the one supposed to be obedient, not us!

Also, she has developed quite a large vocabulary, with high and low pitched sounds... she isn't barking...she's talking, and pretty often we can understand what she it trying to let us know by the posture or tilt of her head or other body language. Do all Corgi's talk like this?

At any rate, this has turned out to be longer than I planned, but how and what my little girl is doing not easy to describe. Takes lots of space! I'll try to be better about posting and will get her pix up in a few days.