Corgi? What's that?

In our subdivision and perhaps in our city, corgis are not well known - either breed of corgi is not well known.  There are the more common German Shepherds, Labs and Goldens and the Doodle varieties and other small dogs.  Therefore, whenever we go out with Gimli or talk about corgis, people look at us with a "huh?" look on their face.  Mike and I resort to the standard: "They are the Queen's dogs", and then everyone knows what we are talking about.

I am so royal, they made a dish with my picture.

The other day, I walked Gimli down one of the lesser traveled streets in our neighborhood.  We came upon this lady, who had just gotten home and she asked if she could meet Gimli.  I obliged and naturally, Gimli was his usual happy, friendly self.  He was fresh from the groomers so he was particularly soft and cute. She remarked that she doesn't see that many corgis and she owns a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, but her late mother in law had a corgi.

After a few minutes, her neighbor came out from the garage and Gimli wiggled over to say hello.  We started talking and he asked for Gimli's name.

Candy: "His name's Gimli".

Male neighbor: "Oh, what a cruel name. How can you name him that?"

Candy: "He's named after the dwarf from The Lord of The Rings."

Male neighbor: "Oh, well that's different then."

Candy in my head: um, ok...

I then proceeded to give the male neighbor the abridged version of the corgi breed standard and about their herding and so on.

We left a few minutes later to continue our walk, maybe we'll run into them again another day.