Jogging Corgis

A couple weekends ago, the corgis and I went to our 3rd Dog Jog in support of the local University's small animal clinic. The money raised goes to research intended to improve the care/testing/diagnosis etc of small animals, such as dogs, cats, hamsters, rabbits, gerbils etc.

The goal this year was $10,000 and the event was able to raise about $9,400.

The day started a little wet from the rain the night before and so the ground was a snowy, wet, mucky mess. I dressed the corgis in their Thing 1 and Thing 2 shirts and it was a good thing I did. By the time the walk was over, their bellies and chests were nice and brown... ick!

The t-shirts were a hit though and everyone loved them. Once again, we were the only corgis in attendance.

There were 2 tracks - a 2k and a 5k. I would have loved to have done the 5k, as I'm sure Gimli can handle the distance, but I was unsure about Ms. Merida. She loves to go and go and she's a born sprinter, but I don't think she understands the need to pace. We were about half way through the 2k and I guess she realized that we still had a way to go and all of a sudden, "Ms. I must be in front and ready to run", slowed down and started to conserve her energy.

Both corgis were great with meeting other dogs. You can definitely see the difference in Gimli now that he lives with Merida. He's not as high strung and a bit more sociable. I do think he will be a Mr. Grumpypants for life and will allow some meeting, but I don't think he'll ever fully let his guard down around other dogs. Around Merida, yes. Others, not so much. At this point, I'm ok with this. If he can meet other dogs and be calm and nice with them, then great!

Merida was great too, except when this offleash dog wouldn't let up on sniffing her... girly bits. She let the dog sniff at first, but then he wouldn't stop. I could see her start to get annoyed, she was curling her lip a little, which she never does. I started to move her away, but the dog kept following! Of course, the owner wasn't paying attention.... of course.... Finally, the dog lost interest and went away. We moved out of range before the dog saw us again.

One thing I did this time was to stay on the edge of the group of dogs. Gimli does not like to be crowded and many of the dogs there were very hyper, despite going on a 2-5 k walk. I try to stay calm and to keep the corgis calm as that helps to reduce their need to act out and if another dog does come up to us, the corgis are in a better frame of mind. Most times it helps, other times I cannot help when someone comes running up to us squealing and that sets the corgis off into a frenzy. More work here is needed on our part.

We don't want to walk, we want to pee up and down this huge branch!

This cutie kept looking at us, but he was a bit too strong willed for the corgis.

the end.