Rissa was now a "big sister". Though slightly daunted by this randomly crying, awkwardly flailing being who had entered her life, she adapted quickly to such things as longer preparations before the daily walk (when our daughter had to be bundled into a stroller), etc.

Always gentle with the baby, Rissa's joyful Corgi bouncing brought about our daughter's first laughter (which encouraged Rissa to bounce even more). When "Rei" started solid food, Rissa discovered the joys of being "Dog under Highchair", and "Dog next to Child with Food-Messy Face and Sticky Paws".

Rissa had helped pave our way into parenthood. As both she and Rei grew older, we contemplated adding to our family - canine as well as human.

Rissa was such a delightful girl - a "perfect" dog-ter, and a gorgeous one at that. Choosing a Cardigan Welsh Corgi had brought such happiness to our lives. We wanted a second Corgi, preferably one similar to Rissa in temperament, proportion and coloring if possible (we loved her red-and-white with the dark face points and dark-rimmed eyes.) In addition, my mother, the formerly "wary of dogs", had fallen in love with Rissa, and would happily have absconded with her every time she visited us - she suddenly wanted a Corgi too.

Windsor, Rissa's sire, was still by far the handsomest Cardigan Champion we had ever seen, in our humble opinions. Reds-and-whites being extremely scarce on the East Coast, and litters of pups scarce in general, we decided to perhaps breed Rissa, even though she had not shown. We thought that at age 4 Rissa might have a smaller litter, so that we wouldn't be faced with the dilemma of placing 10 puppies!

We corresponded with many CWCCA members up and down the East Coast, and also with the Gasts, who had relocated to Texas, for advice and suggestions regarding this potential plan We also received a some offers of stud service, and we eventually decided to continue the linebreeding by selecting the handsome red-and-white Linus (Ch. Chandler's Pluperfect Popgun) http://members.aol.com/ncunliffe/linus1.htm from Nancy Cunliffe's Suncliffe Kennel in Maine.

In early January 1993, our whole family (except for the bunny) trekked up to Maine, where we met Nancy Cunliffe, her friend Dottie DeBeck who also bred Cardigans, and the Corgis: Linus, and Linus' first two offspring, Thelma and Louise, and their mother Natalie(?). Rissa loved Linus at first sight, and we left her at Suncliffe for some "supervised frolicking" for a week.

After we retrieved a happy, bouncy and very satisfied little Rissa, she soon started showing evidence of pregnancy. Lying down, she definitely took on "furry bread-loaf" proportions, with her stomach spread out on both sides. I had of course researched all I could find about midwifing puppies, and we and the vet monitored her carefully.

Shortly after dawn on the 16th of March, Rissa's water broke. After a night of thick blizzard which made the roads impassible, it was a good thing there were no complications at all. Over the space of 2 hours, four little red-and-white Cardigans were born, girl-boy-girl-boy, smallest to largest, in a towel-lined wading pool in my daughter's bedroom. We spent the day in our pajamas, sipping tea and eating cookies, and marveling over the tiny bundles kept warm by their lovingly conscientious mother and a well-placed lamp.

Puppies grow, puppies get shots & dewclaws removed (but not tails!!! - Yes, the clueless vet's assistant asked!!), puppies' eyes open, puppies learn to climb, puppies and Mom move from the upstairs bedroom wading pool down to the kitchen, with baby gates and an emptied & doorless kitchen cupboard for a "multi-dog den". (Also suitable for starting the "kitchen-newspaper-step1-winter-housetraining scenario.)

Four puppies. I named our new little kennel Comyn, after the red-headed telepathic noble class from Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover Novels. (It also sounded conveniently Welsh.) Four puppies... four Elements! So, their registered AKC names included a designation of each of the four Elements - Earth, Air, Fire and Water (yes, I'm a geek, I actually tailored it to their respective puppy personalities!), and were completed with the names chosen by their new owners.

Four puppies, though two would have been sufficient. One for us, one for my mother... and one of the hardest things I've had to do was find loving homes for the other two - not because responsible good homes were necessarily so hard to find (they were), but because my heart wanted to keep all the babies forever. All puppies that left us went out on the stipulation that if the owners were ever unsatisfied, just please return the dog to us at any time for a complete refund.

Rissa's second-born, a darling little boy with a coat fault (single-coated) and a partially blue eye (oops, another "fault"), went to a young couple who neutered him and named him Truman. They brought him back to visit us a year later, with lots of photos of him enjoying canoe trips with them, etc.

Rissa's third-born, a big placid girl, went to a woman in New Jersey, who had recently lost her beloved Cardigan of many years. She called her Scooter. We visited them a year later, and that dog, too, was obviously doted on and loved. Her owner was still contemplating the possibility of showing her.

Rissa's fourth-born, a large "talkative" boy with a strong resemblance to his mother, quite a lot of dark masking, and huge ears, became my mother's dog, Stuart. My mother visited him, but he lived with us until he was 6 months old and completely trained before I delivered him to her. To this day she and my stepfather adore him, and find him extremely well-mannered and a perfect gentleman in every way. He has come to visit us with his beloved humans many times.

We knew that given a choice we wanted another girl. (And preferably feisty like her mom - we seem to have a distinct preference for feisty girls! - In this respect even our human daughters have well fulfilled our hopes.)

Although "Scooter" seemed likely to end up the better proportioned of the two girls in conformation, Rissa's eldest little daughter had rather wormed her way into our hearts with her spunkiness, curiosity, and habit of wanting to follow us everywhere, as well as a quizzical tilt of the head when we spoke to her, as if she were trying very hard to understand. Perhaps she might not develop as lovely a conformation as her mother or sister (or youngest brother), but she practically had a sign over her head flashing "Keep Me!!" We named her Kiva (Comynara Kivaris Brightwater).

Considering the unforeseen problems little Kiva was going to encounter in her life, the Spirit of Dog must have been watching out for her by making sure this particular pup stayed with us.