Our dogs had a keen sense of the "hierarchical birth order of pups." It was many years before Rissa deigned to take orders from "upstart puppy" Rei, our eldest daughter, who had been born after Rissa. Likewise, Kiva would happily defer to "older sister" Rei, but ignored our younger daughter's commands until the daughter reached about 9.

Corgis have a lovely deep bark, which from the other side of a closed door sounds like a much bigger dog. I used to take Rissa to the Massachusetts Renfaire in a little "knightly steed" costume, where she was constantly addressed as "My Lord" because of her voice. (We eventually discontinued her Renfaire appearances due to the extreme vigilance we had to exercise around Lady Low-Rider about the chicken bones people would carelessly drop to the ground.)

Many times I have had people ask me "Are they twins?" and "How do you tell them apart?", when Rissa and Kivas' white markings are only superficially similar, the shape of the dogs and even their heads and ears are different, and in fact I could always easily tell who is who by the sight of a mere tail-tip sticking from beneath the table.

We hold regular "Bardic Circles" and music events in our house (Celtic folk music type stuff & such), and Rissa loved to lie in the center of the room surrounded by the music. Sometimes other visitors brought their dogs, and there was canine playtime as well as human. Rissa was the Bardic "mascot", and songs were written about her. If anyone were practicing music in the house, she would come and serve as audience, and could even be found lying by the stereo speakers when a CD was playing.

Since Rissa, being a Corgi, liked to spend her time hanging out with her people, we "hired" her as the office's honorary QA manager. When we hired a friend of ours as an additional programmer, Rissa adopted Kristil into the family as well, and her favorite daytime lounge spot became the area by Kristil's desk. Rissa became so attached to Kristil that she would follow her all over the house, and never seemed to bother that sitting in front of the bathroom door means that a dog's butt gets bonked when the door opens (outward) again. When we hired another friend as office manager, Rissa welcomed her too.

Kiva, meanwhile, hung out more near the kids. Kids eat snacks. Kids may be careless, and dogs are eternal optimists about potential "windfall"...

In 1999 we rescued an ill-treated abandoned bunny, who my younger daughter, with a 3-year-old's sense of propriety, named "Bun-Bun". After much love and patience (and spaying), fierce aggressive Bun-Bun turned out to be a wonderful and friendly house-rabbit. Kiva, who adores small animals, decided at this point that she wanted a pet of her own, and adopted Bun-Bun. Kiva can be often found attentively licking Bun-Bun, which pleases an imperious bunny who loooooves attention, and when carrots are proffered they both expect them. (Bun-Bun on her part keeps trying to steal dog treats out from under the blind dog's nose - which we have to prevent, since they may not be good for rabbits.)

Rissa's attitude? "I am soooo over bunnies..." *Ignore*.

Teenage Corgis are elderly Corgis, living at an age beyond the life expectancy of several other breeds. Age brings along its own set of problems. Rissa developed on-and-off "leakage", for which she took Phenylpropanolamine. Around the age of 13, Rissa was going deaf, a particularly sad thing for a music-lover, although she could still enjoy the company of a Bardic. I appreciated that she had learned obedience hand signals in her youth, since now I had to communicate with the deaf dog by visual signals and the blind dog by auditory signals.

Rissa also started to become arthritic, and we added Glucosamine powder to her food. At 14 Rissa might still run in the park on good days, perhaps even leaping onto a bench, but on bad days she declined to go for a walk at all. Both dogs had slowed down with age of course, but now Rissa slept more and more, and far more soundly than in her youth. Her favorite sleeping areas were primed with towels, and the vinegar bottle + rags were always handy for cleaning any "leaks".

We had a young teenage foster child for several months, and she became enamored of Corgis too. She and my eldest daughter papered their bedroom with pictures from old Corgi calendars.

In 2004, when Rissa was 15, we discovered a mammary tumor which was removed on April 1st. (Despite the date, we hoped for the best.) Rissa seemed to be recovering nicely, despite a lot of clotting under the skin.

On May 2nd, however, we woke to discover Rissa having a seizure, from which she could not break free. Another emergency rush to the vet, immediate treatment in surgery, and several days in ICU, in an oblivious state from the anti-seizure drugs. I visited her and held her and sang to her, whether or not she could hear me.

When Rissa was awake and growling angrily at all the veterinary staff, we brought her home with a slew of medications, which had all sorts of side effects from grogginess to excessive thirst to irritability. For a while she seemed to get better, and then she had another seizure - short this time, thank Gods. We had a long, long discussion with the vet, who suggested that if she weren't recovering it was possible that Rissa might have a brain tumor. We elected not to do extensive, invasive testing that would cause her pain and which might reveal a problem nothing could be done about anyway.

It was heartbreaking. Other than what was hurting her inside, Rissa still looked young and vigorous, with sturdy muscles, a lovely coat, and good senses of smell and vision. Because of the pain, she often didn't want to move much, so I carried her out to do "hurry-up" several times a day, though she wanted to preserve her dignity, and insisted on walking slowly, painfully, back into the house on her own.

My birthday was in the middle of June. We had scheduled a house-concert, and Rissa understood that there was something to hang on for. She rallied over the few days leading up to the party, and with all the people and food and music (including requested songs about dogs), she became extremely sociable, walking about and greeting everyone, and behaving much like her old self. It was more than my birthday party, of course, it was a celebration for her, and everyone knew it. Several songs were sung specifically to her, and if she didn't hear very well, she still basked in the attention. It was her last party, and she had a blast.