Never garden with a Corgi!

The Epitome of Determination

Take a look, a really good look at the above picture.  If that’s not full-out extension and determination, I’ve yet to see it.  And then take a good look at the following picture.  Its the same dog.  But you’d think the one in the first picture is ten feet high or would have to be to catch that ball.  And in the lower picture you see that she is not.  This illustrates, just a little, the determination of the Corgi.

Champion!

The fabulous, flying corgi is not my dog.  She is one of Wendy Wendt’s famous Low Rider corgis.  Wendy is a corgi breeder extraordinaire and I’ve had the pleasure of ‘meeting’ her and her WendtWorth Corgis www.wendtworthcorgis.com as we are members of the same Corgi Facebook Group and now ‘friends’.  The flying dog is Sian, pronounced like “sigh Anne”. Her registered name is Misty Ridges WendtWorth Honey Lark born Aug. 4, 2008.  She’s not even 2 years old!

A portion of my day is spent very happily keeping up with corgis, new litters, etc from around the world as I have Facebook ‘friends’ in Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain, and all over the US and Canada.  Somewhere here is a message and testimony to the value of good social media networking!  What with gardening, corgis, and the Vancouver Canucks, I am not sure on how I keep my day job!

Back to Corgis and gardening.  Whether it is Sian, or my corgi, Ivy – trying to garden with a corgi can be, well, trying…………..   Let me illustrate.  You just ‘suit up’ for your time in the garden.  Knee pads on, scruffy clothes, gardening gloves, IPOD tuned to something rockin’ and you get down on your hands and knees to seriously attach those neverending weeds in your garden.  Within seconds, this is what you look down on:

Right in your line of vision

This is not a skill unique to Corgis. This uncanny ability to place the ball directly in front of you so you can not fail to see it and it is in an easy and convenient place to pick up and throw can be mastered by all dogs.  But, Corgis that live with gardeners are particularly adept at it.  Corgis are very, very intelligent and they want you to think that this whole ball-throwing thing is just part of your gardening routine.

IF you are foolish enough to pick up the ball – you deserve your fate.  Immediately the corgi adopts a stare with a level of concentration that is nearly scary.  Look at Sian and Ivy – who have never met – one lives in Ohio and one lives on Vancouver Island – yet both they have identical concentrated stare:

Sian waiting for the pitch

Ivy at three months just starting to perfect ‘the stare’.

Ivy today with that same intense 'throw the ball' stare

The choice of balls in immaterial.  Ivy has a little ‘jolly ball’  with a handle that she prefers if she is retrieving in water, but she’s equally happy with the most dirty, chewed, disgusting bent tennis ball of the planet.

If you are foolish enough to actually throw the ball, then consider that you have bought in to at least 10 throws.  After 10, during which time your gardening progress is slowed to a crawl, some Corgis will buy into your ‘OK, that’s enough’ command and lie down for a breather.  I swear they time the next move.  Nonchalantly they lie down like a perfect angel and wait just long enough for you to regain your rhythm and purpose in your gardening task.  In their minds they are waiting until your forget that you’ve ever told them to lie down.  Just when you’ve determined its a joy to garden with a corgi, PLOP, the ball re-enters your field of vision.

The next time, if you are blatantly foolish enough to pick up the ball yet again and throw it, you really deserve your own fate, and the fate of your plants.  What invariably happens during the throwing game is that you begin to get fed-up and tired and just fling the stupid ball without purpose or aim and……..sure enough……it lands directly on your most sensitive, valuable, and tender plant, breaking three precious stems.  And you can’t even blame the dog!

Don’t get me wrong.  I love corgis – once you’ve had one (like I did when I was growing up) you can’t do without one.  They are SMART, (Ivy is a Companion Dog (CD) that involves qualifying scores in three separate Obedience Shows.  Some dogs have to go to show after show to get the three qualifying scores.  Ivy qualified in the only 3 shows she ever attended and was high score dog in two of the shows), but that SMART can backfire as I swear they can think around you.  Corgis are courageous – after all they were bred to herd those big, ugly Highland steers – and they can be very loving.  Who can resist these WendtWorth corgis – this, I believe, is the whole family

A whole family of those ball playing maniacs

Is there a solution to gardening with a corgi?  A way to train them to never drop the ball in your line of vision if you are working in the garden?  If there is, please send me the instructions.  Better yet, don’t bother, Ivy is too far gone and the joy I can see she has outweighs the odd destroyed Itoh peony.  Besides, all that throwing keeps my arms toned.  Here’s another of Sian at her best………..

Excellent photographer as well!

A final, necessary comment.  Whereas this is a valentine to Corgis and their determination and obsessions, it would be wrong for me to write a dog blog without a nod to my beloved Chocolate Lab.  Holly (get it? Holly and Ivy) was here first, and she has tolerated Ivy and her constant torture with all the good nature inherent in every lab.  Ivy herds Holly, used to pull her tail, lies all over her, and tries to outdo her in every way.

Holly the chew toy

Here’s to Holly, and corgis everywhere.  They brighten up my life everyday.

Advertisement