corgi question

I think of the few Chazzers that have met Revy.... they'd probably all agree that she's epitome of Pembroke Awesomeness.

Sassy, outgoing, drivey, intense, hilarious, fearless, bold, vocal....









I BITE YOU!

Wow Docket does resemble Ziggy! Ziggy is pretty small too (under 30lbs I think), his height is typical of but he's shorter bodied and a finer boned than most of what you see in well bred Cardigans. That is a bummer about Docket's reactivity, I know that can make it difficult to do stuff with a dog. How old was he when you got him?

MUm2Mutts I'm LOL at your description of Pems and Cardi's. I'd love to find another Ziggy-type Cardigan, he's fun and a nice size

Revy is pretty adorable!

About 10 months old when we got him from the Cardi rescue. The reactivity started at about 18 months, with no initial trigger that we can think of . . his first "victim" was a big black Goldendoodle who had never hurt a soul in his life (including Docket) . . .then big black dogs . . . then dogs that were bigger than him and black or any big dog and anything with curls . . . now all dogs unless they are his size or smaller.

There seems to be a strain of Cardigans that are small and light boned . . . they look like the old (1930s) pictures of working Cardis. There are a couple that have popped up from good breeders that I know of from the Cardi club . . . there's a pretty little bitch whose also light boned, slim, and very active. So it seems to pop up on occasion, though its not the current vasion.

Docket, however, is from a shady BYB in Tennessee . . . at least that's what his original owners told the Pembroke rescue lady who saw an add for him as a stud dog (!) for sale in the paper and called them. She rescued him (convinced them to give him to her, they had to get rid of him due to the financial crisis) and turned him over to the Cardi people. Do you know where Ziggy is from?

Its hard to do stuff with him now (I joke that he's not allowed out of the house) but fortunately we have agility/rally/obediance trainer that will let him in her classes so long as I (and not my fiance) is handling him. She knows him and likes him and thinks being out is good for him.

<3 I don't think I've ever seen a picture of Docket. He's really cute. He looks really close in structure to Tipper (to me anyway). They have the same head shape, ears and it looks like a similar coat. Weird.

Not the best picture of her but the only one I can find that shows her ears/head/body right.


(Ignore her rib cage - she's finally at a reasonable weight, this pic was taken before we switched foods.)

ETA: Of course....Tipper has no tail. LOL. Other than that she looks similar to Docket.

They do look a lot alike! There's something heeler-y in Tipper's head, but if I didn't know she was a mix, I might not see it.

There was speculation at the corgi club about whether Docket is actually purebred . . . he has no papers, although his previous owners swore up and down that he was. The conclusion was that he is purebred (though not well-bred), because there are certifiably purebred Cardis that look like him. But its interesting to see how much like a mix he does look.

I need to get a sideways shot of her when she isn't looking like a goon (which may be never - haha) cause her head is bigger than it looks in that picture LOL. Still, it's probably not quite as big/round as Docket's. It's entirely possible that I see more corgi in her because she looks so much more corgi than Mu does. Mu clearly has more of a heeler build and Tips got more corgi.

I didn't even realize until I googled it that Cardis can have a shorter (smooth?) coat. I feel really dumb now actually cause I've googled them about a million times to ogle the puppehs. :doh:

Docket is basically smooth, though not lacking an undercoat. It seems to come with the light build, because the other lightly build Cardi's I've seen also have smoother coats. Most Cardis have longer, heavier coats (and heavier builds) than he does, but they aren't "poofy" like the Pems. Interestingly, "fluffy" doesn't seem to be a separate gene, the way it is in Pems . . .there are Cardi's called "fluffies" and it is a serious fault (or DQ? I cant' remember), but it is a continuum . . . some "fluffy" Cardis, with creative grooming, can make it into the ring, and I'm told some of them are bred to add density to the coats of the pups, even though the "fluffy" parent might not be showable.

And strangely appropriate:

It happens in Pemmies too, although the only ones I've seen personally in pemmies are from byb/mills/rescues (unknown breeder), but it's there.

Ares is pretty much exactly what pemmies were in the 40's. It's a lot of fun to take him to corgi nationals and some of the older folks stop dead in their tracks when they see him and smile and just totally light up. They love him and his thowbackness.

I have definitely seen that kind of reactivity with herding dogs before, Curious if he had a lot of exposure to group play prior to developing the reactivity? Sometimes that seems to be a trigger in itself.

I have been told that as well. I actually known someone who has a leggier, fine boned but well bred Cardi bitch that does agility.

We got Ziggy from a private shelter near Kittanning, PA. The shelter director who we had to talk to prior to adopting him was...ummm, not real pleasant to deal with. He was an owner turn in at about 6 months old. His owners gave him up because he wouldn't stop grabbing the kids legs/pants when they played (obviously they were behaving like bad livestock ) and from the sounds of it was all around just too much for them. They simply said he was a "Corgi". If they told the shelter any more or gave any paper work with him, the shelter director wasn't about to tell us (it was hard getting the info I did out of her, she pretty much said we'd probably just end up dumping him too because he's a bad herding breed dog LOL). I'd love to know where he came from but he's a mystery. I'm sure he isn't well bred but it would still be interesting to know more about him.

It's nice you have a trainer willing to work with you. Reactivity is such a bummer when the dog is otherwise really good.


Ziggy has the same type of coat as Docket - GSD people call it a "close coat". It isn't prefer for show but it is nicer to have less undercoat to shed! My husband had a fluffy Cardi before Ziggy. Looking at some show Cardis I have definitely suspected some to be trimmed fluffs.

A few Ziggy pictures:

He did. We took them both to the dog park every weekend . . . heh. I also think that the fact that Sarama is so much bigger, and so assertive, may also have been a problem . . . he just learned a little too much respect for bigger dogs.

I have it on good authority that the practice is not uncommon

Looking at your pics . .. they really could be related. I wonder how many bad Cardi breeders there can possibly be . . . they just aren't that common of a breed.

I worked at a doggy daycare for a long time and can say that unfortunately, regular exposure to group play can for whatever reason trigger leash reactivity. Many of the daycare dogs became at least somewhat leash reactive and barrier aggressive (once on the other side of the fence would fence fight with the dogs). Trish King wrote an article about Dog Parks and mentions leash aggression as a possible negative side effect as well:
http://www.apdt.com/petowners/park/docs/DogParks_King.pdf



I have thought that as well when we found him at a shelter. My husband was set on having a Cardigan and wanted a rescue dog. I sort of thought "yeah right" but we found him fairly quickly.

That description of how it can lead to leash aggression . .. and beyond, sounds an awful lot like what happened to Docket. <Sigh> '

Sarama, my other dog, is pretty typical of her description of dogs that out grow the dog park.