Grammys Corgi Country

Corgi Country is a peaceful, quiet place to live now-a-days. I like this time of my life, but I do miss my kids. They are scattered all over the country (U.S.A.) with kids of their own in most cases. I get a case of “Empty Nest Syndrome” every once in a while even though it’s not totally empty yet. I mentioned before that we have six kids… five legally, and one more that has become a part of our family since he started out in foster care here 16 years ago.

My oldest son, the construction worker, lives in Florida with his wife and 4 daughters. My daughter and her hubby live in Texas with their three boys, and my gentle giant son also lives in Texas with his wife, a son and daughter. My cowboy son lives a couple of hours away with his wife and son, and my “eagle” son lives about a half hour from us with his two daughters and a son (with one on the way—hence 13 ½ grandkids). My youngest, an author as of today, lives here for the time being as I have had to have help since my first injury a few years ago. (You can buy or preview his book, “Little Dott Finds a Home” by clicking the link in “my links” at the side of this blog)

I feel that we were blessed with Corgi Country so that we would have a good place to try to help fix broken lives, both animal and human. The Lord has helped us “rescue” children, birds, horses, goats and dogs during different seasons in our lives here. A lot of the time, the work has been hard and/or heart-breaking, but many times we’ve been so blessed to see some truly neat things happen.

I plan to share some of these stories in future blogs with you, so stay tuned. Have a great weekend!

I guess it’s hunting season again. As I mentioned before, we live out in the middle of nowhere with BLM land all around us and whenever rabbit, dove or quail season opens, we start hearing the guns going off around us. I don’t mind having some rabbit jerky every once in a while, but I hate it when people shoot the poor little dove and quail… especially when we have watched the quail hatch and grow up. I keep praying they will learn to stay in and around our yard or at least on our property during this season.

You should see the tiny little puff balls when they first hatch. You will see a mama or daddy quail stick their head out of a bush and look around carefully, and if all is clear, then they run across the empty space between bushes with a whole bunch of little balls of fluff about 1 ½ inches around, running after the adult and followed by the other adult usually at the end of the line. It is so neat to see the parents taking care of their little ones… so much better than a lot of humans take care of their kids.

A year or so ago, we had gotten one of those l0 ft. around swimming pools, and my son was sitting quietly in it soaking and not moving. An adult quail stuck it’s head out of the bush just inside of the fence and looked around. My son sat really quietly and watched as it came out slowly and looked around and then lay down in some soft dirt and started to take a dust bath. Within a few minutes, 3 or 4 tiny little quail came out and started to copy their parent… a minute or so later, here came another several little ones. They kept on coming until there were about 15 babies and two adults out pecking around and taking dust baths.

After about 20 minutes, Robert got up quietly (The birds ran back into the bush) and came in and told me about it and we watched through one of the bedroom windows for several minutes until they started coming out again. It was so cute and precious to watch those little ones copying their parents… They would watch and then drop down and do the same thing they had watched their parents do. The parents took turns keeping a watch and bathing and eating, so they would all be safe. It was cool to see how God has given even the birds the knowledge of how to take care of their young. I wish that kind of love and family life were available to all of the kids that are born today. Having worked in the school system with the handicapped for 18 years, I’ve seen a lot more nastiness then I ever wanted to see in relation to some parent’s “care” of their kids… but then again, I’ve also see some of the most wonderful parenting in the world… Parents and/or grandparents who have given up almost every free minute to take care of their severely handicapped youngster. I just wish more parents were like those special people.

Have a Blessed day, and bring joy to someone you see today.

Those nasty ground squirrels are at it again! Every year when my pecans get ripe, those nasty little thieves put on their mission impossible gear and snag a bunch of my pecans! They had gotten really bad during the last couple of years of my old Border Collie mix, Shadow’s, life when he couldn’t chase them down anymore. He was about 16 years old when he passed away a couple of years ago… just before we got Sadie. I’d go outside and find a big old pile of pecan shells stacked up beside one or two of their holes. Grrr…

At least over the past couple of years, since we got Sadie, those sneaky little pest’s thievery has been cut down quite a bit. Sadie is quite a hunter, catching rabbits, squirrels, mice, lizards, etc. The wise critter will stay out of our yards now or have to be VERY sneaky…

We have three large fenced yards: The front is about 1250 sq. ft., the side is 750 sq. ft. and the back is about 1750 sq. ft…. lots of running room for an energetic herd of corgis and a hyper Border Collie… that is, when I’m not outside when they can have free run of the full 5 acres we have. The fences around the outside and between each yard are 6-8 ft. tall (to be sure that coyotes can’t jump in) with a hot wire up high to try to keep out bobcats. We usually leave the gates open between the yards so that the dogs can have plenty of room to run, and so that they can keep the critters out… especially those pesky squirrels!

Ground squirrels may be cute to look at, but they are MAJOR pests for us, not only because of their ripping off with my pecans, but because of the holes they dig in the yards and in our pastures. We had to be very careful when we walked out into the yard that we didn’t trip in a new hole they’d dug overnight… before Sadie. We also have to be careful because of the holes they dig out in our pastures that the horses can trip in. One time they even ATE my expensive authentic braided rawhide Peruvian Bosal that I’d hung in the garage!

A couple of years ago, I looked out of my kitchen window into our enclosed back patio and saw one of the little varmints that had come in the doggy door. It was sitting on our chest freezer, holding open the lid of the plastic tub I’d gotten to put emergency supplies in (we have earthquakes around here.) The little rotter was holding up the lid with one paw, while stealing a package of instant oatmeal with the other. He dropped the lid and split with the oatmeal packet when he noticed me looking at him… little twerp! I went out an checked the tub and all that was left was some pieces of oatmeal and a bunch of paper scraps… (Major GROWL here !!!)

I got another heavy duty BIG plastic container after that for the supplies, and a couple of months ago, when I had to move it, I found that they had gone behind it and chewed a BIG old hole into the back side of it!!! Rotted little rascals !!! Guess I’ll have to get some kind of metal container to store stuff in.

I wish you freedom from pests !!! Have a good day.

Today I thought I’d fill you in on Wind Dancer, the 6 year old Arab gelding we have now. As I mentioned before, he was given to us (my son actually) who was then relocated by his job to a place where he can’t have horses, so he passed Dancer on to me to get him back into shape and to teach him a few things so that he will be able to find a good home.

I was told that Dancer spent the first 4+ years of his life out in a big pasture and wasn’t handled very much. He is really spooky about a lot of things and freaks out if you move very fast around his head or try to put anything toward his back. He is pretty gentle on the ground and will let me brush him and lead him without any problems. (A lot of the work on that part was done by my son and his wife.)

He was very skinny when he came to us, but after being wormed and fed enough to feed a couple of horses for a couple of months, he is looking pretty good now. He was eating four or five large flakes of alfalfa, 10 lbs. of alfalfa pellets and ½ to one quart of 4 grain a day along with a quart of so of bran. We weren’t sure if he was so thin because of parasites, tooth problems or sanding, which can be a big problem in this part of the country.

As I said, I wormed him first. He is pretty young to have any bad tooth problems, but I fed him the pellets and grain to be sure that he was getting some definite nourishment into his system. He is to much of a spook at this time to do a thorough job of checking his teeth yet, and since he has gained weight so well, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t part of his problem. Since he has hit the proper weight for his size, I have slowly cut back to a normal horse’s portions and he seems to be holding his weight well now, so something worked.

I mentioned “sanding” which is what horse people in this area call it when a horse has eaten off of the ground for a long time and gotten a lot of dirt into it’s gut. This can cause some major malfunctions, leading to nutrition problems and sometimes colic or even a twisted gut which is usually fatal. It can be treated, if it hasn’t gotten really bad, by giving bran mash mixed with corn oil and water. I put 4-grain with molasses into the mash as well to encourage the horses to eat it well. If it is let go to long, the vet has to come and do a nose tube into the stomach with mineral oil and a couple of other types of nasty treatments to get things to move out the other end. We try to make sure that our horses don’t eat off of the dirt very much, get plenty of exercise to keep their intestinal tract working properly, and get bran mashes fairly regularly to protect them from “sanding up.”

The past several weeks we have been working in the round pen every couple of days to bring his muscle tone back up to where it should be. I’ve had quite a few horses that came to us half starved over the 40 + years I’ve worked with them, and have learned how to rehabilitate them into healthy, happy, well-mannered horses.

I’m sure that Dancer will come along just fine. He is starting to learn to trust me now and is letting me handle and groom him without to much trouble. He isn’t freaking out anymore when I put a curcingle (a cinch without a pad or saddle) on him. I can even lead him around while carrying a bareback pad without him snorting too much and dancing around all wide eyed.

I pray that you have a good day filled with joy and peace.

Hello again. We have two horses now. The first one is Cory (Coronado King) who is half Peruvian Paso Horse and half Appaloosa Mustang, and the other one is Wind Dancer who is an Arab (possibly mix, though he looks pretty much full Arab… we aren’t sure because he is a rescue horse that was given to us.)

Today I will introduce you to Cory. I’ve had him since he was around 3 years old and he is 22 ½ now. His mom was a 16 hand Appaloosa colored mustang mare that had been brought in from a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) round-up. The lady that had acquired her had a Peruvian Paso Stallion (which are usually a fairly small breed of under 15 hands). I gather that the lady had run into some hard times and when my girlfriend first saw Cory, he was almost 3 years old but looked like he was only a couple of years old because he was all head and bones. She took him and started to get him straightened up, but already had to many horses/ponies, so she sold him to me for the amount she had spent on him by that point.

I finished bringing him up to full health and trained him. He is very smart and totally gentle. He was pure joy to ride because Peruvian Horses have some of the smoothest gaits in the world. One of the classes they have at Peruvian Horse Shows to show that the horses are smooth is to put a glass of wine on the rider’s head on the flat hats of the traditional garb and ride them at full speed. The gaits of the Peruvian Paso Horse are walk, Paso Llano (four beat lateral movement in even cadence) and Sobreandando (which is the same four beat lateral gait but accelerated)… sort of a running walk type of gait. Cory does the Peruvian gaits naturally, but will also trot sometimes and will lope as well, but with the high head carriage of the Peruvian.

Since I hurt my hip and back several years ago, I haven’t been able to ride, but my son and grandkids still ride him some… I use him to teaching riding to my youngest grandkids. The kids also like to see him do some of his tricks, and he knows what “no” means and will shake his head sometimes to tell me “no” when he doesn’t want to do something and then we have a discussion, which he loses and grumbles about.

Tomorrow, I will fill you in on Dancer. I wish you joy for your day.

Good morning, world! I hope you are having a really GREAT day. Today I want to introduce you to our Silly Sadie dog. She is about 4 years old and is a black Border Collie with a little white on her chest. She is very smart and was a rescue dog. We got her about 3 years ago. She is constantly on the go… a typical Border Collie. She is a great herding dog and used to put the goats that we had wherever I wanted them. She learned that with VERY LITTLE training… mostly from watching the Corgis work.

I have found that there are some dogs, and I’ve been blessed by owning several of them, that learn from watching other dogs do things. Most of these dogs have been breeds that were working or herding dogs. These breeds were bred to think for themselves at times, to figure out how to do the overall job that their masters have set for them to do. I must say that the border collies and Pembrokes that I have worked with have all had a very strong herding instinct and it mostly takes some polishing up and the teaching of certain commands that are used to guide them at a distance to have some really handy helpers for an old lady with and iffy back and hip.

Anyway, Sadie learned quickly and well from the corgis and she helps me now when I have to put the horses into their pens from the pastures. She is a typical Border Collie with the attitude of that old joke: How many Border Collies does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, and while she is at it, she will wash the windows, paint the walls, rewire the house and fix that hole in the roof…”

Whenever I sit down, somewhere, here comes Sadie with a tiny piece of paper, or sometimes even a dust bunny she’s found. If I try to ignore her, pretty soon she gently places a paw on my knee and looks at me expectantly. All the dogs know that I have a constant supply of tiny pieces of dog treats in my pocket. After a couple of these offerings, I usually end up having to tell her, ok… “NO more…” before she will go over and lay down.

Ooops… I’ve run out of time, so I’ll have to fill you in on our horses tomorrow. Have a productive rest of the day…

Good morning, world… I hope your day is going well… Now that you’ve met our O.C. (Ornery Cuss), I’ll tell you about the two pups that we kept. (The others all got WONDERFUL homes, and I keep in touch with them often.)

We still had O.C.’s dad, Buddy (better known around here as Butter Butt), at the time the pups were born. Bud was about 12 years old at the time, and we’d recently lost our Mist (O.C.’s mom) to cancer, so we kept two of the five that had survived their birth. Mist is the black tri in the header.

My son wanted the runt of the litter as he was hoping for a “mini” corgi, and that is just what his little Dorothy Joy Wigglebottom (as her total name has morphed into) turned out to be. He called her Dot from the very beginning as she has a spot on the back of the white ruff that goes around her neck.

She ended up taking the size of her small father and the coloration, conformation, attitude, coat type and smarts of her mother. He has even written a book about her and should have it into publication in about a month. He illustrated it with photos. I’ll let you know when it comes out.

The other pup that we kept, we named B.G. (short for Bud’s Grandson) He is the other pup in the picture. Beeg took the larger size of his corgi mom and the coat type and colors of his father (and his ears did come up shortly after this picture was taken).

The pups are about 2 and a half years old now. Dot does all kinds of tricks and B.G. does tricks and is coming along nicely as a helper dog, picking up things for me, etc.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about their Auntie Sadie (better known around here as Silly Sadie), and our two horses. Have a blessed day.

Hi, people… I’m back again and, as I promised yesterday, I thought I’d tell you about the matriarch of the current Corgi Crew, today. She is the one on the left of her mom and Dad in the picture.

We are on our third generation of Pembroke Welsh Corgi’s, and that’s one reason that we often refer to this place as Corgi Country. The oldest Corgi that we have now, is named O.C., which stands for Ornery Cuss. She was the orneriest one in her litter, and about TORE her brother UP when they were little! She is very smart and used to herd our goats. Now, she works as a helper dog for me.

We had several people waiting in line for her to have pups when she reached the proper age, but, typical of her ornery little self, she failed to produce for several years until she was old enough that we were going to give her one last fling… Well, she decided to sneak out and find her own “man” and made up for lost time, having EIGHT Chihuahua/Doxie/Corgi pups… Guess we named her appropriately, huh!

More about our crew tomorrow… I wish you a joyful day!

  Hi  world… Boy am I glad that those elections are over… Whether you believe this country elected the anti-christ, the Messiah, or just some poor shmuck that’s jumping into a pit of poop (I’ve heard all three said), I’ll bet you’re just glad that the campaigning is finally over… I KNOW I am! 

This is my first blog and I guess that I should do a short introduction of myself.  I’m a 56 year old mother of six, and have 13 ½ grandkids.  I worked for 18 years with Special Ed. children and loved it and them.  I’ve recently had a back injury, and find myself at home with a bit of time on my hands, so thought I’d jump into the blogging world and check it out.

Hubby and I have 5 acres out in a VERY rural setting. The closest town is a couple of miles away, and our nearest neighbor is about a quarter of a mile away on one side with no homes on the other three sides for MANY miles.  We are surrounded by BLM land which makes it really nice and quiet.  

I get to listen to, and watch, many kinds of wild critters like coyotes, quail, dove, ground squirrels (little nasty thieves), and road runners, etc. 

Tomorrow I’ll start to fill you in on our Corgi crew and horses… Have a good day!!