The Dodge

P.S.: please ignore our lovely sub-floors in some of the photos. As some of you all may know, we were in the middle of a floor remodel when we brought the Dodge home. Great timing, right? Actually, better to have an accident there than on new hardwood floors. 

We’d been hoping to expand our little family with a second Corgi for a few years, but had our hearts set on a Tri-color and really wanted it to be another boy. Let me tell you that male tri-color Corgi pups are hard to come by in our neck of the woods. Impossible it seemed.

Until… the breeder we adopted Dash from had a litter posted to their site of pups they sired in Memphis. There were three, THREE tri-colors out of four pups and only ONE was a male. I knew he had to be mine the moment I set eyes on him, but was afraid it was a lost cause from the beginning. We knew nothing about the breeder in Memphis or her dogs, but we had no doubt about our local breeder or her sire. She has extreme standards. We didn’t know if he was already claimed by a family in Memphis or someone that knew her. We didn’t know if he was even available to be adopted or the fee. And I was at the mercy of my local breeder to give me the low down on a dog I wanted to adopt from someone else.

Because they sired the pups, the local breeder got pick of the litter, which meant that genetic testing had to be completed first to see which pups were DM (degenerative myelopathy) clear. The dame was a DM carrier, but the sire DM clear meaning there was a 50/50 chance our little guy would be clear and NOT up for adoption but instead picked by the local breeder. Tests came back and she begrudgingly told me he was available and supplied me with contact info for the breeder in Memphis.

Here is one of the first pictures she sent us of him at around 5 weeks old. Isn’t he just the cutest?

We exchanged information, ie told our life story, with the breeder in Memphis and fortunately it seemed he was still available to be adopted!

So we did the only sane thing at this point and sent her all of our money, well, a deposit at least. He would be ready to come home right around my birthday in mid-March!

He fell asleep in his food bowl. 🙂

This is one of his sisters that got adopted by a family in Memphis.

Quite possibly the cutest picture ever of a baby corgi puppy – the Angelina Jolie leg! I think this little guy does it better if you ask me. 😉

Memphis got some winter weather in late February, so our new pup got his first experience with snow before he even came home with us! Dash loves snow, but hard to tell how this little guy feels about it yet. Although, the snow covered face is a good sign that he might just be as obsessed. 🙂

Another favorite of him as a puppy, courtesy of the breeder – the “Hey, girl” pose. I die. I’m dead.

So we scheduled the pick-up with the breeder for March 14th – the Friday after my birthday! What a great birthday present!! We took the afternoon off from work and drove the 5 hours to Memphis to get him. We took Dash with us so that he could be introduced to the pup on neutral territory. I cannot imagine how things would have gone had we shown up after being gone all afternoon and evening with a new little brother. Dash loves a good car ride though, so he was very excited about the trip. Not sure he was as excited after 5 hours there and back though.

This is what greeted us at the breeder’s house:

The cutest litter of Corgi puppies just waiting to go home!

We tried to capture Dash meeting the puppy for the first time, but he was distracted by all the new smells, toys, dogs, and people. So it was impossible because he was not into meeting this tiny Corgi thing.  🙂

Denise, the breeder, captured a family photo before we left. Look at how tiny!

We picked out the name Dodger from “Oliver and Company” – ya know – the Artful Dodger. Dash is named after the Incredible’s son, Dashiell, so we had to stick to the movie character theme and try to come up with another “D” name since all of the Corgis we know have “D” names. Fortunately, Dodger fit this little guy perfectly. The breeder also loved the name because her very first Corgi’s name was also Dodger! How crazy is that?! We had no clue!

So the car ride home was interesting. I rode in the back to keep the peace and about 5 minutes in Dodge had taken over half of Dash’s bed. Dash was not so pleased and avoided this new pest the whole ride. If Dodge even got near him, he would do the side growl at him to say stay away from me. It wasn’t a viscous growl, but he was clearly annoyed by this new presence. I think he was also grumpy from being in the car for so long. Poor guy.

We made a pit stop mid-way home to let Dodge potty since he could’t hold it that long yet. I wish we had gotten a video because all he wanted to do was play. He kept jumping up on his hind legs like a little Lemur. It was the cutest thing!

I rode home the last hour or so with a 32 pound Corgi on my lap because as soon as Dash saw it was empty, he took his opportunity to hop in it and refused to move. Clearly in need of mommy time. 🙁

As soon as we got home from Memphis around midnight, the boys jumped out to go potty and once again Dodge just wanted to play. In that instant, a light bulb must have gone off in Dash’s mind because he went from super grumpy Corgs to super excited. He finally realized we had gotten him a playmate!! Although I don’t think he realized just how much energy a puppy has and that the playing would be never-ending for the first few months. Dash took the torture in stride though. 🙂

Dodge, sir, you have some of Dash’s fur stuck to your nose…

They really are the best of friends now, even if they don’t always act like it. 😉

Dash occasionally needs his breaks and moments of peace or cuddle time with us. In fact, he has started this new daily ritual of climbing into Rem’s lap to cuddle in the morning when he goes to put on his shoes – he waits until the perfect moment. It’s pretty cute, but clear that he says he just needs a little alone time with Dad.

Dodge is finally turning into more of a cuddle monster too. Starting out he was just a crazy, insane puppy with so much energy he couldn’t stand to be still for 5 seconds. Believe it or not, he has calmed down a lot. He is also more of a talker than Dash ever was – he barks at birds, the wind and he makes way more noises. He groans and moans and whimpers. It’s pretty cute.

I’ll end with a couple of videos.

The first one is Dash hip-checking Dodge and showing him who’s boss. Don’t worry, Dodge gives him plenty of grief and Dash mostly takes it, which made this pretty funny.

The next one is Dodge struggling with this idea of going down the stairs, which shows you just how mouthy and talkative this little guy can be.

I think we’ll keep him. 😉