This dog is no simple dog
She's strange as the trees
She's red as the mountains
And white as the seas

She runs upon briars
Without any boots
And her eyes are as fine as
The music of flutes

And when I am risen
And ready to run
She laughs without laughter
To welcome the sun

But as yet she can't fly well
Nor play on the horn
Still she is the best little dog
That ever was born

-- from "Goddess Dog"
by (?)

It began in adulthood with research, as has every big planned event in our lives (College, Marriage, House-hunting, Childbirth, School Choices etc.)

Really, however, it began in childhood, in a hometown where I could point out every household that had a dog, none of which were mine.

For whatever reasons, all pleas I made for a canine family member were rejected. I often thought about having a dog - in particular, I was attracted to alert, intelligent, even-tempered, sturdy dogs, which as I found out (years later) typically meant the working breeds. Bright wide-set eyes and non-drooping ears were a big plus. I knew nothing about the Queen of England's dog preferences, but Corgis especially seemed both intelligent and endearing, as well as beautiful and conveniently sized (and also showed up with great frequency in my Tasha Tudor books. The author/artist signed a cherished copy of A Time to Keep for me in 1977 with a small drawing of a corgi.)

Though thwarted in my childhood longing for a dog, by 1988 my husband and I had purchased our first house. Finally there were no parents or landlord restrictions standing in the way.

For my first canine adoption, I preferred to rely on known parentage and breed, particularly for temperament and health reasons. Corgis were still in that fond uppermost corner of my mind, but first I would make sure of the options, so as to choose a dog that would be suitable to our own temperaments, lifestyle, activity level, housing situation and family plans.

I combed the library and bookstores for information, and one book which I remember stood out in particular: The right Dog for You, by Daniel F. Tortora. Quickly narrowing the choices down to the Working / Herding dog set, I soon discovered that there were 4 breeds that would likely temperamentally fit our family the best: the Bernese Mountain Dog, the German Shepherd, and the Cardigan and Pembroke Welsh Corgis.

Oh, delight! There were my Corgis! Our house was small and not air-conditioned, not well-suited to a large, thick-coated dog such as a Bernese, who would need frequent trips to a groomer as well. German Shepherds also needed more space, and I was concerned about the potential health and temperament problems they might have due to their great popularity as a breed. Ah, but Corgis! There were the beloved dogs of my childhood, and apparently they were a perfect match.

I had never heard of Cardiganshire's Cardigan Welsh Corgis before, but upon reading up on their history and the breed characteristics, I decided that if it were possible to find one, the Cardigan had a wee bit of an "edge" (That irresistable tail? *grin*) over the Pembroke for me, though both seemed an excellent choice (and were certainly quite similar, given the crossbreeding that occurred between the two until the 1920's or so.)

On a fateful day in January of 1989, my husband was reading through the classifieds of the Boston Globe, when his eye fell on a small ad placed by a family in Rhode Island: "10 red-and-white Champion-sired Cardigan Welsh Corgi Puppies available for sale to good homes; inquire at [number]." We had no clue at the time just how rare such an occurrence was, finding Cardigans in the newspaper. We had no idea at the time either, as to the scarcity of the breed in the United States! But of course we placed a phone call at the first opportunity and were shortly thereafter on the icy Road To See the Puppies at Michael Gast's Greenshade Kennel. (We were very, very lucky in truth - we crossed paths with the Gasts during the mere 2 years they lived in New England, and it was the only litter they had on the East Coast.)

"Daddy" was Windsor, a handsome 9-year-old red-and-white Champion gentleman, while "Mommy" was his line-breeding granddaughter Annie, a lovely young red-and-white Fluffy (long-coated, a corgi "fault") who was an anxiously attentive first-time mother at age 2. Windsor's lovely brindle-and-white mother Sibyl, 11, was also on the premises.

Of the ten 3-week-old pup-balls, 7 were boys and 3 were girls. (I admit we paid far less attention to the boys, since we had our hearts set on a little girl.) The puppies had been born on New Years Day, and were being raised in a house where they were socialized from birth with a human family, which included careful children.

Good news so far. We spent a couple of hours gently holding and snuggling puppies, left our names, address and phone number and a tentative choice, and I reported to my allergist with joy when after 12 hours of I had clearly not had an adverse reaction.

We returned in two weeks when the pups were 5 weeks old, and confirmed our original selection of that one little girl with the nice build and bite and lovely coat, curious and fearless temperament, and asymmetrical facial markings, despite a natural longing to bring home armfuls of snuggly puppies. When the pups were 8 weeks old, we returned to Rhode Island a final time, and brought home with us a Purina Puppy Starter Kit, and baby Rissa.

(Rissa's papers included her kennel of origin in her name - "Greenshade". I supplied the rest of her "formal" AKC name "Greenshade Tomyris Callisto", adding the name of a victorious Scythian Warrior Queen, plus the Greek name meaning "Most Beautiful".) Most beautiful she indeed grew, with her gorgeous dark "mascara", and her outer-coat fur darkening to a deep red (speckled throughout with solitary dark hairs, if one looked close.)

Our little fawn-colored house-rabbit, Attila the Bun (more commonly known as Bun-Boy), was our friend and companion, but Rissa was really our first child. As a baby, she of course needed love and attention and playing with and toys and training. Bun-Boy was the equivalent of "puppy TV" - she learned early that he was a fascinating being, even if not a puppy, and on his part he saw her as merely a silly young nuisance, occasionally treating her to an arrogant flip of his heels. (Jealousy has never been an issue in our household; we have never lessened the attention given to an older family member when a new one - even a new human baby - has come along.)

Crate-training? Why, yes. It's always been reassuring for our dogs to have their familiar "dens" when we would travel with them, and at times when we could not leave them the run of the house. (Puppy + teething + tissue boxes = indoor snowstorm!! - And that was during a mere quick run to the store for milk!)

House-training ended up a two-stage affair with all our "winter pups", due to the miserable Massachusetts weather - first they were "combination-kitchen-&-paper trained", and then they were "outdoors by the back fence tree" trained. (Smart as Corgis are, they learned not to use paper as easily as they had learned to originally use it - and I made sure that newspapers were scarce in the kitchen for a long while afterward!)

Obedience classes? Of course; taught by a local dog club secretary. Rissa was a lone Corgi in a class full of German Shepherds and Rottweilers, and it was clear that she believed she was merely an unaccountably short-legged large dog. On our own, we taught her that if too much excitement resulted in heel-nipping, the "run-game" would be terminated with a firm "No!" and a short muzzle-hold. She learned to curb that instinct, but not before my favorite pair of boots had suffered a bit. Oh well.

Furniture? In our house, sure - we sat on her floor, so she could sit on our couches. (Not the dining room chairs, and not couches at other people's houses, unless they approved. She knew the difference.)

Microchips weren't the "in thing" yet. Rissa got a small belly tattoo from "ID Pet". Now it was a felony to steal her, since she was now - my poor baby! - a "branded animal". (Peace of mind, though - and none of our dogs have ever gone missing, thank Gods.)

Rissa was very intelligent. She taught us how to "puppy-proof" in unexpected areas - for example, she figured out that nudging out a dining room chair gave a Corgi excellent access to whatever food might have been left carefully placed on the table far from the edge. The mail coming through the door slot was "the enemy", so we built a cage in front of the mail slot to contain it. (When we removed the mail, we'd let her bite the bills.)

Rissa was quick and eager to learn, took pride in her obedience class work, and responded wonderfully to praise and affection (which are preferable to rewarding with treats, as far as we are concerned.) She was friendly with both humans and other dogs, and loved to play "chase me chase you" with either, in classic "Corgi Run" fashion.

She was a fearless little girl, too; living up to her namesake the ancient warrior queen. This is the dog who would alert us to the first sound of the holiday fireworks going off, and expected to be taken out to see them (or at least the crowd.) Though happy enough during quiet evenings at home, she loved noise and excitement. During one thunderstorm, lightning struck deafeningly close by the house - and she ran to the door barking furiously, wanting to go outside and challenge it.

We joined the Cardigan Welsh Corgi Club of America and the Yankee Cardigan Welsh Corgi Club in order to meet other Cardigans, other Cardi people, and to become more familiar with the breed. We attended a number of shows and breed meetings, and although we discussed the possibility of showing Rissa since her flaws were quite minor (a wee bit of cow-hocking), we never really had the time to learn the show process ourselves. Obedience and agility interested us even more as options, and someday when our lives are a little less complicated (i.e.: children are more grown) we may look into these further.

Rissa did attend herding clinics twice, and proved to be a born herder. She rounded up ducks and sheep and brought them to me as if she'd been doing it all her life - with a most irrepressible Corgi grin. We felt rather guilty when the woman running one clinic told us severely: "This dog should live on a farm! She loves to work, and needs to work!" But Rissa never seemed to mind being a "suburban dog". Hanging out with her family (we took her everywhere we could with us, including hiking in the White Mountains) and doing what we asked of her seemed to make her plenty happy enough. Besides, she had an uppity rabbit to herd, sticks and Frisbees to chase, trees to attempt to climb (she tried!), and shortly before she turned 2, a new family member - our first human daughter was born.