Elvis on FOX News

It is spring break week for  Hope College, and my brother Tim and his corgi Elvis are on a speaking tour up the East Coast.   They were on FOX News last night and will probably be flying to NY next week to be on the CBS Early Show.  Here is the direct link to the FOX news story.

http://www.comcast.net/video/dog-does-calculus/1449285442

http://www.hope.edu/hopetoday/ has additional links to the CNN Story that ran in 2008 (now on YouTube), the FOX story above, a longer version of that story on local FOX television in Virginia and an interview on Public Radio in VA.

A Look Back .....October 21, 2000

Today is Princess' 11th birthday, and I thought I would post my journal entry from October 21, 2000 - the day she came to live with me.   She was a year and a half old, a little thinner, a little more spry but with the same confident, feisty personality she has today.   Little did I know, eleven years ago today, that in Sarasota, Florida a litter of puppies was being born - one of whom would change - and enrich - my life with more joy than I could have ever imagined.   Happy birthday, sweet Princess!

October 21, 2000

Princess' and my first day together could not have gone better if I'd ordered it straight from heaven. She really seems happy here, and Barb says we are a perfect match. I think we are. I picked her up about 9:00 and ran a few short errands so she would get used to riding in my car and having me disappear for a few minutes and come back. After the first time, she didn't seem to mind. Never barked or whined at all. Then we came home and she was happy in the house for about 1/2 hour - just as she was the other evening. I fed her, she ate well and then suddenly got very skittish on me - wouldn't let me approach her, ran and hid behind furniture. I felt so bad for her - could tell she was just very bewildered and scared. I finally lay down on the carpet and gingerly she approached me. When I could reach out my hand to rub her neck and tummy, she relaxed and lay down beside me. Ever since then, she's been fine. We were outside most of the afternoon. It was a perfect autumn day - sunny, in the 60's and I had a lot of raking to do. Laurie came over for a while to help me and she thought Princess was the cutest dog she'd ever seen. My next door neighbor has a black lab and when she came out, she (Sadie) barked at Princess but Princess just looked at her and didn't bark. However, Sadie kept barking so I finally went over to pet Sadie and Princess got very agitated. She barked at me (she has a high pitched irritating bark but fortunately rarely uses it) and when I came back over into my yard she was jumping at me and obviously very upset. It was kind of funny. My neighbor thinks she is beautiful and she said "Mike will be so jealous." The rest of the afternoon we raked and Princess had so much fun romping in the leaves. Denise Larson and her girls stopped by to meet her and the girls enjoyed playing ball with her. After a few minutes she was retrieving the ball. When we're outside she loves to romp and play but when we come in, she is pretty mellow. She loves to lay next to you on her back and have her tummy rubbed. She cuddles right up to you.  Princess is alert and responsive - comes when you call her. She does jump in the bathtub if she gets a chance. I was told that she LOVES to have a bath. She barked at the vacuum cleaner (I decided she might as well get used to it because I vacuum every day) and when I ran the mop over the floor she got behind and tried to "herd it". FUNNY!! She likes to be with me, but she doesn't follow me everywhere now that she is used to the house. I am setting down a few ground rules - no begging at the table, and she must stay on the passenger side of the car. I have signed up for six weeks of training with her, beginning November 1st (more for my sake than hers). She was pretty tired by tonight. It was a big day - lots of new places and new people. I have her little travel kennel, and when I opened the door she went right in, lay down and went to sleep!! I couldn't have hoped for anything better.  I was told to have her sleep in there and stay in there when I'm at work. Even though the space seems confining, they feel secure in there and do better if you leave them in there. Gradually, after a few weeks, I can try letting her have the run of the house for short periods while I'm gone.  All it all, it's been a great day. 

We're Baaaacccckkkkk ....

I owe a huge thank you to the Google technical support team for restoring our blog!   Two weeks ago, in the process of changing my Email address, I accidentally deleted my Google account .... and this blog went with it .... disappearing far into Cyberspace somewhere.     CorgiTales is not a blog that makes any profound contribution to society, but I've had a lot of fun with it and we do have followers ... so I was pretty devastated at the thought of losing it.   Realizing that I was a mighty small goldfish in a HUGE ocean, I started posting requests for help on every site I could find, without a whole lot of hope that I'd get any.   But several days ago, I received a message that our blog had been restored!!!    Yeah!!!    The only problem is that my photos were not restored .... so gradually, over the coming weeks and months, I will upload those again.  I figure if I do a couple of posts a day, it shouldn't be too painful.   I learned a couple of important lessons .... 1) back up your posts in a Word document and 2) don't start deleting things when you really don't know what you're doing!!!    (I think I have learned that lesson before .... why didn't I remember it?!)   So anyway, we're BACK!    And CorgiTales, by the way, originated as the name of our scrapbooks ... now on Volume Six ... and counting!!  

Drifting Along ....

It's mid-February and the main topic of conversation these days is spring flooding. Again. This year. It's getting really old. We have more snow than we did last year at this time, and it has a higher moisture content than last year's. And, just like last year, there is more snow south of us - snow that eventually melts and runs north. Crazy river. Many people still have battle fatigue from last year ... so the thought of going through it all again is hard to take. I broke down and spent my vacation budget on flood insurance. It was just too close last year. The big unknowns yet are how much precipitation we'll receive in March and April, and how fast the snow melts. A slow melt is what we're hoping for.

The long winter starts to take a toll on everyone about now; including the girls. They've been fighting more the past few weeks, and I'm not sure what that's about. It may be that they haven't been getting enough exercise. We've been getting out with the snow shoes on weekends, but I've turned into a wimp on weeknights. I get home from work and just want to hibernate for the rest of the night ... especially now with the Olympics going on! I tell myself that the girls are 9-1/2 and almost 11 now and they don't need as much exercise! But they've put on a couple of extra pounds, and we all sleep better if we get out for at least a short walk in the evening. Their leads are buried somewhere deep in the snow, so I let them run unleashed in our neighborhood. They're usually pretty good about staying close to home, but they do like to wander down the block to a house rented by college students where they know they're likely to find left over pizza and other tasty delights. One night last week I let them out to go potty about 11:00. When Dee Dee didn't come right back, I called for her, and she barked - from my neighbor's yard. There is a fence between us, but the drift in my yard is so high that she was able to walk right up and over it. Getting back wasn't so easy. I had to put my boots and coat on over my pajamas and sneak into my neighbor's yard to rescue her. I wasn't too happy with her that night - nor the next day when Princess did the same thing! The drifts are like concrete. I cracked my bumper on one at the end of the driveway (grrrr ...) and the girls have cut a track through the back yard on top of the snow. It's kind of funny because, looking out the back door, you'd never know we had a deck! It's just one giant snow drift that covers everything. Yes, we are longing for spring .... we just don't want it to come all at once!

Cute, butt .....

I don't know if it's because they have no tails, or because they are so low to the ground, but corgis have the cutest little butts! Many times we have been out for a walk, and someone has come up from behind us and commented on this! Of course with two of them walking together, side by side, they are especially fun to watch. Dee Dee has wide hips (can anyone relate?) and when she lies down to relax or munch on a chew stick, her short little legs fan out to the side as in this picture. I call it the 'flying squirrel' pose because of how her legs are spread. Princess, on the other hand, finds it more comfortable to keep her legs close together, and lie with one of them tucked up under the other. I suspect that is the position she was in before birth, crowded in Babe's belly with the other puppies. Dee Dee is longer and has much bigger bones - and when you look at her from behind, you see how sturdy those back legs are. Princess has narrow hips and thinner, more fragile looking back legs. My brother says she looks like a woman walking on high heels.

A couple of weeks ago we were visiting a friend who lives in a third floor apartment with a walk-out balcony. It was too cold to go out there, but the girls loved watching the action in the parking lot through the sliding glass doors. My house doesn't have any windows that are low enough for them to look out, so it's always a big treat when we go somewhere that does. They can be entertained for hours, watching for rabbits, squirrels or other critters.

Happy New Year! Brrrrrr .....

Happy New Year to everyone! It's hard to believe it was 10 years ago that we were consumed with Y2K, and holding our breath to see if there was a massive computer crash, power grid failure etc. at the turn of the millenium. It's also hard to believe that 10 years ago, I didn't even know what a 'corgi' was!!!! I got Princess in October, 2000 - and my life changed forever. 

It is COLD. REALLY cold!! Minus 33 degrees F this morning, with a wind chill that is minus 60! The girls tolerate cold weather quite well, but they went potty pretty fast this morning! I get such a chuckle out of Princess. She stands on three legs - alternating the leg that is raised - presumably to warm it up! Smart girl!

We are taking care of our neighbor, Sadie, today. Sadie and Princess are the same age, and they've been pals since the beginning. When they were young, they used to chase and chase and chase around the garage and through our yards. Now that they're old ladies, they just enjoy hanging out together. Dee Dee adores Sadie. I mean, really adores her. Occasionally she gives Sadie some 'lip' but most of the time she gets under her head and gives her lots and lots of kisses; then rolls over in an act of total respect and submission. It's so interesting, because she doesn't do that with any other dog; certainly not with Princess. Sadie is much bigger, of course, but she's really the most mellow of the three of them, which has been a good thing because she could take care of Dee Dee in short order, if she wanted to. But they are all great pals.

Christmas Snowstorm

It's been many, many years since the Midwest has had a major snowstorm on Christmas Day. There are a couple of aspects of this one that are headed for the record books .... 18 inches and counting, and the duration of the storm: 3 days, if you count the 5 inches we received Thursday night. We had a little reprieve yesterday for a few hours and then it wound up again, dumped another foot of snow and brought a lot of wind with it. Plans were changed and, unless you got out of town Thursday night or early Friday, you ended up staying home. The girls and I slept late this morning (soooo nice .... had the radio on, listening to Christmas music in the background), and I spent the day finishing up my cards and blowing snow. My snowblower isn't very big so you have to stay ahead of the drifts. I'm usually at work, so don't have the opportunity to do that, but this time I did and I'm so proud of myself. I was dug out before any of my neighbors (for once!) and even was able to help with my neighbor's driveway, since he DID have to work ... a 12 hour shift, no less.

The girls think the snow is just great, and they had a lot of fun playing with Sadie, their pal next door. Running through deep, heavy snow with legs that are 5 inches long is a lot of work, and they are getting older .... so they came inside and went right to sleep. Merry Christmas girls!