30 Years Ago Today!

On this day in 1986, a cute little split-face Cardigan Corgi was born. Hard to believe that was THIRTY years ago! I'm not going to write a long tribute as I've already done that here  and here. I just like to perpetuate his memory. I go through his photo album each year on his birthday and remember what a great dog he was. I would not have Wilson and Jimmy if it weren't for Dylan.

Happy Birthday, old boy! I hope the frisbees are flying in heaven today and you catch each and every one!

Dylan the Second!

This little guy looks an awful lot like my very first Cardigan, Dylan and I so wanted to bring him home! Can you see all the personality?!

Have a great weekend, Everyone!

Yin-Yang

Dylan  was my first Cardigan Corgi. I got him back in the mid-80's, when I wasn't familiar with either breed of Welsh Corgi. He was marvelous on so many levels, smart, funny, good with all dogs, and with a rock solid temperament. He was extremely precious to me and he left a HUGE hole in my heart when he left.

It wasn't long before Wilson came along. He had huge shoes to fill and he did a beautiful job of easing the pain in my heart. As is often the case, individual dogs of the same breed are not necessarily the same in temperament and personality. This was so very true of Wilson. While a total sweet heart, he was not Dylan. He was very intelligent and biddable like Dylan, yet he was shy and very reserved. Dylan had been the life of the party! Thanks to my agility addiction, I felt the need to get a second dog, one who (hopefully) would be bold and enjoy all the hub-bub of a busy trial environment. So with the help of Jimmy's breeder to select the right puppy, I brought home Jimmy, a firecracker from day one! Amazingly Jimmy is probably more intelligent than either  Dylan or Wilson, adores people, has endless energy and desire to play agility. But he still isn't Dylan. Despite endless socialization, he is unpredictable with which dogs he will get along with and which will provoke snarky behavior. I have to keep a close eye on him and micro-manage his interactions with other dogs. He was also the first of the three to have thunder storm fears.

We sort of have a running joke that it took getting two dogs to be able to equal the perfection that was Dylan. Which leads me to the point of this post, Yin-Yang, the Taoist concept of two halves that together complete wholeness, of duality forming a whole. Most of us are probably familiar with the taijitu, the symbol of Yin-Yang:

Taijitu

Well yesterday, the boys presented themselves as the canine embodiment of this symbol. Little black Jimmy even placed himself on the correct side! I ran and grabbed my camera just as quick as I could!

So here they are, truly my yin-yang dogs, the two brought together to fill the hole left by Dylan. And have no fear, I love these boys dearly, quirks and all. I wouldn't trade them for the world!

Give Cancer the Paw: All I Wanted Was for Dylan to Die of Old Age

I am joining Jackie's blog hop on Giving Cancer the Paw . My story is a tribute to my first Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Dylan.

I am not going to re-hash what I wrote in that earlier post. I didn't even mention his cancer in that post. And there is a good reason. He beat it!

Here's his story:

At age 14, Dylan was still a pretty spry old man. He was still going for nice long walks, he was perky and happy. One day, we noticed a raw spot on his lower lip. It sort of looked like his upper canine tooth was rubbing that spot into a sore. We kept an eye on it for a while but it wasn't getting better, and, in fact, it looked worse. Despite being the lead in to the busy holiday period, we knew we'd better get him to the vet and have it looked at. They agreed with us it looked odd, but wanted to take a conservative approach, so we treated it with antibiotics and a topical ointment. Ten days later there was no improvement whatsoever so we opted for a biopsy to be done. This is no small decision with a 14 year old dog, but he was in apparent good health, so he had the pre-op blood tests, and then had a small surgery to remove some tissue. The sample was sent off to the lab and we waited. Just five days before Christmas, we got the news. Dylan had cancer, a rare and fortunately slow moving lymphoma. Luckily, the prednisone (a steroid) he had been taking in small doses for his IVDD had probably been helping to retard the cancer. The vet explained our options....do nothing and let cancer take its course (Dylan was, after all, an old dog already), or up his prednisone dosage to try to further slow the cancer and maybe buy some more time, or third, they could refer us to a veterinary oncologist. John and I both felt it was worth at least meeting with the oncologist to hear what they thought.

We met with the vet sometime after Christmas, and she explained to us the protocol she would use to treat Dylan if we so chose to go forward with it. She never tried to talk us into or out of treating him. She listened to our concerns, such as not wanting to put Dylan through chemo hell when obviously he was an old guy with a limited future in the best of circumstances. She explained that often dogs did not suffer the same discomforts that we humans did while going through treatment. He would not lose his fur, nausea would be minimal, and being a dog he could happily live in the moment and not brood on the diagnosis. And of course there were no guarantees. With no treatment he would probably live 6 to 9 months more, with treatment it could possibly buy him a couple of years. Truly, when your dog is 14, what more can you ask for? All I knew was that I wasn't ready for him to leave my life. Damn it!  I wanted my dog to die of old age, not from some nasty disease!

So, we opted to treat him. Luckily for Dylan (and us), his chemo came in pill form. At first he took his pill every week. He would sort of lay low for a day, not much energy, not very hungry. But that was it. The next day he would seem like himself. Little by little the dosage was spread out, once every two weeks, then once a month. He also took other drugs to help his organs withstand the assault that chemo is. By the end of a couple of months, the sore on his lip started to shrink! By the time his 15th birthday rolled around in July, he was determined to be in remission! The sore was GONE! There was no telling how long it would stay away, but at 15 he was cancer free! He was no longer in danger of dying of cancer, he was in danger of dying from being so freaking old!

And that's exactly what happened. Dylan lived almost another two years after finishing his treatment. He missed turning 17 by a mere two weeks! We helped him across the bridge when it was obvious he was ready to go. In the very end, it was his kidneys that gave out. Cancer did not take his life. We had won, even in the heartbreak of losing our old man.

Lots of people thought we were nuts for treating his cancer. Why spend so much money on an old dog? And I can see where that thinking comes from. But for me the answer was simple: LOVE! We both loved that dog like crazy. He had been our faithful friend for so long, he deserved to get all of the years of life due him. Luckily, we had the financial resources to go forward with the treatment. It was expensive. There is no denying that. This was way back around 2000 or 2001, so I can only imagine what the cost would be now. I hope I never have to find out! Jimmy and Wilson are strictly forbidden from getting this awful disease!

A sassy boy right to the very end!

The Weekend Report - Making a Bit of Progress...and a Birthday Remembered....

This weekend was the Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club of the Potomac's agility trial held in Frederick, Md. This is the closest trial site to my house, only a 45 minute drive. Woohoo! I didn't even leave home until 8AM and the trial was running small dogs to tall!

When we last joined Jimmy's journey to his MACH, he was having fear issues due to the A/C roaring to life over his head and freaking him out! He's now taken that fear to yet another building. He planted his feet and did not want to enter! I didn't give him a choice however so in we went. I had left him in the car for as close to his run as possible and I brought his raw tripe that helped so much last time. While he was still quite apprehensive, he managed to be more interested in the tripe than worrying about the scary building. Standard was our first run of the day. We took off and had a good run going. We made it through the tricky parts and were in the home stretch......only to have Jimmy take out the very last jump. Sigh.

Here's that run......





Next, of course comes our Jumpers run...We are about three out from heading into the ring, when the skies overhead open up a loud deluge of heavy rain (see add'l note below :-) ) on the metal roof. This scares the crap out of Jimmy! Where a moment before he was only nervous, now he was petrified! I seriously considered scratching our run, but decided to give it a try. It was a very tricky course with a speedy dog and despite the rain noise, Jimmy ran well and qualified! What a good boy!

Here's that run.....




Of course we need those all important double-Q's but I'll take a single Q!

Sunday was pretty much a repeat of Saturday. Jimmy was scared and didn't want to go in the building. He faced his fears by eating lots of tripe. I can say he was less apprehensive on Sunday as he was offering nose touches and paw shakes to get the tripe at a faster rate. He even managed a bossy bark or two when he wanted more tripe. In Standard, instead of taking out the last jump, he took out the very first jump. That was really my fault as I changed our start from the usual sit/stay to a stand/stay and he crashed the double jump. But, hey, if you are going to take out a jump, the first one is great because then you can try things you would otherwise not risk! I cheered Jimmy along throughout the rest of his run, egging him to go fast. The Jumpers run was fun with a couple of tricky spots. I almost lost Jimmy to an off-course jump, but managed to redirect him at the last second! So once again, a Q but no double-Q. We really need the big points we earn from qualifying in Standard because two successful Jumpers runs netted us just 25 points. That's not much of a step forward toward the 500 points we need for the AKC Nationals....

Here are the course maps for the two videos above.....

Click to enlarge

Now up above, I mentioned heavy rain. Well, the funny thing was, I had been crating out of my car for the morning, before it got too hot. All my windows were fully open! LOL! I'm third in line to run, my car is nowhere near the building, and the skies just cracked open! Even after my run was over, it was pouring so hard I didn't want to run that far, getting drenched in the process. I had my shade panels over the whole car/windows, so I was hoping that most of the rain would be deflected. At least the sunroof was closed! When it finally stops raining maybe a half hour later, I go check on my car.....And it is SOAKING wet! There are puddles on the floor, in all the window switches, even on the ledge in front of my speedometer! The dog beds are wet as is a towel and blanket. Fortunately, this isn't the kind of thing that pisses me off. It just made me laugh. It's only water and it will dry out....But when I drove to the trial Sunday morning, I got out, and even after sitting on a towel, my butt and back were quite damp!

And finally, before ending this post, I want to send birthday wishes across the Rainbow Bridge to my old friend Dylan, who was born on this day in 1986. Gone ten years but very definitely not forgotten!
You can click here  and here  to read about my buddy.

Amazing how a little dog can change the course of your life!

Tracking Jimmy's MACH progress:
Masters JWW legs: 35  Now he's working on his MXJ4!
Masters STD legs: 20 We earned our MX2 and are working on MX3 now.
Double Q's: 14 (out of 20 double-Q's needed for a MACH.... 70 Percent! The snowball is headed downhill!)
MACH Points: 846 (out of 750 speed points needed for a MACH...... We've got our points and then some!)

AKC Nationals 2014:
Double-Q's: 6 (out of 4 needed)
Points: 285 (out of 500 needed)
Masters Legs: 18 (out of 20 needed)

A Stroll Down Memory Lane....

Sculpture and Photograph by Barbie Sonnett

It's funny how things can trigger an old memory, one that hasn't surfaced in a long time. I am a big fan of the sculptures that Barbie Sonnett creates. She was an amazing talent and luckily for the Corgi world, she directs her skills in our direction! I always keep an eye peeled to EBay to see her latest pieces. So when I saw this amusing little scene built around a lamp, I couldn't help but smile at the memories it conjured up.....

Back in the days when I had my sweet Cardi Dylan , I lived in a condo in Reston. We often ordered pizza for delivery. We would phone it in and then write out a check for the delivery person. Well, Mr. Dylan was just as big a fan of pizza as we were, and it didn't take him long to figure out the pattern.....Hear the word "Pizza", a phone call, a check and that meant something wonderful would be arriving at the front door! He would go position himself a few feet from the door and wait. His attention span would hold whether the pizza took 15 minutes to arrive or even an hour. He sat and waited and drooled. It got to the point where if we were just tossing around the idea, "Hey, you wanna order a Pizza?", he would go sit by the door....for a long time. And, heaven forbid, if we decided against getting one, convincing him to leave the door was tough! We eventually started talking in code when it came to discussing the topic. We shortened it to just "P"..."You wanna order a P?" Of course all dogs learn the key word "wanna", and figuring out what "P" meant was simple enough. So then we switched to "Pie"....He figured that one out, too! Never doubt how much your dog understands, especially when it involves a beloved food! We moved from Reston, and no longer got delivery pizzas at our new house (they always arrived cold!), but Dylan knew the word Pizza all his remaining days!

Many thanks to Barbie for reviving a fond memory. If that lamp had featured brindle Cardigans, it would very likely be sitting on a table in my house right now!

Have a memorable weekend, Everyone!

Remembering Dylan....

Today is eight years to the day that our sweet Dylan made the trip across the Rainbow Bridge. It's a bittersweet date that we remember each year. Dylan lived most of his life before the digital photograph era so bear with me as I share a few photos of photos of Dylan.

Here he is as a young pup, shortly after coming into my life. I was in my mid-twenties, sulking over the breakup with a long term boyfriend. Dylan had the huge job of healing my broken heart. He did an excellent job and then some!

I didn't expect him to be anything but a pet. I did take him to obedience class where he was the star pupil. He also quickly learned how to train me. Anytime he wanted something, he would use his cutest pose to ask for it. He was very hard to resist.

Even way back then, we were visiting Myrtle Beach, and Dylan did not escape the task of posing for my camera.

He didn't get the benefit of all the dog-focused training/agility hobby I do now, but he went many places we did. Where ever he went, he gathered a crowd! What type of dog is that? Is he a mutt? We joked that he needed a pre-printed vest, saying, I am a Cardigan Welsh Corgi, My Name is Dylan, Yes, You can pet me, Yes, I am supposed to look like this. We must have answered those questions a million times. Cardis where much more rare back in those days and no one knew the breed. Here in this picture, he is cooling off in the reflecting pond down in DC.  That is the Lincoln Memorial in the background.

A weekend at a more local beach......

Dylan's favorite thing in life was to play frisbee. I guess it was his herding dog obsession. He would have played until he dropped dead if you didn't call an end to the game. He would even swim under water to retrieve his beloved frisbee if it sank to the bottom of a stream! He's probably about 12 in this picture and still trying to keep the game going.

Of course, whether we like it or not, time marches on. What a pity dogs are given such a short, short time with us. This was taken on, you guessed it!, Dylan's 16th and last birthday. He still had many months left, but time was catching up with him.

A White Christmas is a very, very rare treat here in Virginia. On Dylan's last one, we awoke to the most amazing sight. Huge wet flakes were coming down, quickly covering the grass and the trees. It was magical and we wasted no time getting out there for pictures. It was a very special morning.

This last photo was taken in July of 2003, just a day or two before we had to let him go. He missed his 17th birthday by only two weeks. He was blind, he was deaf, but in true Cardigan fashion, he was going to get a bite of our food, dammit!



Man, how I loved that dog! Here it is eight years later and my throat is tight, my eyes are teary. He was a wonderful part of my life and I owe him alot. Wilson and Jimmy, my whole circle of dog friends, a hobby I love, all those can be credited to him. What a lucky day it was, the day I met Dylan!

The Best Dog Ever

Before launching into the life and times of my current Cardis, I want to pay homage to Dylan, the Cardigan that started my love of the breed.

When I got Dylan as a very young pup back in 1986, I didn't even know what a corgi was, Pem or Cardi. I was going through a rough patch in my mid-20s and about the only thing that cheered me up was a sheltie pup my parents had just acquired. As a birthday gift, my parents volunteered to pay for a puppy if I found one I wanted. Now keep in mind this was the 80's, with no internet yet, puppy mills were still a dirty secret, and buying a puppy at a pet store had none of the stigma it has now. With an itch for a puppy, it didn't take long for me to find a little pup that called to me at a local pet store. He had the cutest little split color face, huge paws and a wonderful brindle coat. Adorable beyond words! I forced myself to sleep on it, and if he was still there the next day, I was going to make him mine!

Dylan turned out to be an eager to please, easy to train delight, but boy-oh-boy I wish I had known about crate training way back then! He had tons of energy, and it needed an outlet. I would keep him in my bedroom when I went to work as it had a hardwood floor. For some reason he wouldn't pee on hardwood, but he would pee on the carpet in the rest of the apt. One day I came home to find he had tugged my queen size four poster bed to the middle of the room, and stripped it of all the sheets. From all the tugging, a seam had split, and from there he pulled out a bunch of stuffing. It was quite a sight to behold, and hard to believe such a small dog could move such a big bed! I did know that puppies needed to go to obedience training, so I enrolled him in a 6 week session sponsored by the county. He was both the class clown and the brightest pupil. He made it so easy, he loved to learn. From the beginning he was a great off-leash dog, with a tendency to herd you home on the return from a walk, tugging your pant leg to keep you moving along. His one true passion was to play frisbee. He would give you every trick in his repetoire just to goad you into throwing the frisbee. There was a stream in the woods behind my apartment, and after several rounds of fetch, he would fly down the hill, frisbee in mouth, to cool off in the water. Sure enough, he would let go of the frisbee and it would sink to the bottom. He had no problem plunging his head completely under water to retrieve his beloved toy.

Time moved on, things changed, and through it all he was my very best friend. If we are lucky at all, we each get to have at least that one special dog pass through our lives. Dylan was with me for just two weeks shy of seventeen years and saying goodbye was very difficult. Almost six years after his trip across the bridge, I still miss him. I wish I had a better photo to share but I didn't get a digital camera til well late in his life. He was a beautiful boy and I am so grateful he was in my life. I owe him alot. ....Thank you, Dylan, for everything!