On September 7th, 2008, Earl and I adopted a 5-year old rescue corgi who we found on Petfinder. Linus had been homeless for over a year and living in a dumpster behind a grocery store in West Virginia.

This is the trip report from the day we got him.

The eve before we go to pick him up, Lucy checks out the new additions to the apartment.

Ooh, wuzzthis? A new bed for meee? Aww, guys, you shouldn’t have.

Gee, and a new cat climbing apparatus, too?

As “comfy” as she is up there, little does she know that her Mortal Enemy will soon be housed inside.

After a seven and a half hour drive, we arrive at the Corgi Rescue associate’s home. She has fostered and placed over 60 dogs. Currently had 6 fosters at her home, in addition to three full-time corgi pets, who she trains for agility. This woman knew her stuff. She was a certified corgi maniac, and dog and humankind are extremely lucky that someone with her kindheart and passion for the breed exists to perform this much-needed service.

These two guys stood guard at the door.

One of her foster corgis, Spunky. He arrived as an abandonment case at a kill shelter weighing 61 lbs! He’s a purebred (with AKC papers), and corgis are supposed to max out around 35lbs. Oof. He has been in foster for a few months and already lost 9lbs. He’s still erm… pretty plump. He was let out of the pen and ran around when we were there… he looked like a big rolly sausage running around! It was pretty comical, but also sad that someone could let their dog get like this.

This is infamous “Help Jake”. I had read about Jake’s sad situation on Petfinder many months ago, and was surprised to see him in person living out his days in the kitchen of this woman! Poor Jake is the just the scrappiest dog I have ever seen. He was sitting in his cage just panting. He has an entire shelf of meds to himself on the wall. Apparently Jake does come out a few times a day, walks around the kitchen wagging his “tail”, and looooves to eat. He seemed pretty grumpy to us, but I can say with confidence he absolutely gets a superb level of care. It was heartwrenching seeing Jake in his condition, but also warming to realize this woman cared enough to devote so much energy and attention to him!

Another photo of Jake. He has cushings, is on thyroid medicine, an eye ointment for dry eye, and Enacard + Norvasc (blood pressure medicine) once a day. He gets his teeth brushed regularly but is missing most of them. He gets bloodwork done every 3 months, too. He also shows some signs of kidney failure but is on a regular diet, with vitamins. While we were filling out all the paperwork to adopt Linus, I was looking over the counter at Jake thinking “gee, I hope Linus doesn’t head down this road. :( ”

Three hours of chitchat, paperwork, Q&A (I tried to ask everything I could think of about raising a corgi, this woman was a wealth of info), and a signed check later, we are official owners of Linus! We are asked to keep in touch over a lot of things- how he does in the car trip home, the first two bowel movements, once we have his introduction meeting with his NYC vet, and also have to promise to send her a Christmas card with dog updates every single year for life. Lol. Talk about passionate rescue dog maintenance! It’s very reassuring to know if we do have any problems, we will have an expert on call.

We load our new best friend up in the back of the Jeep!

As we pulled out of her driveway with him in the crate, I teared up and tears of happiness rolled down my face. I’m just so excited and happy and overwhelmed to have this guy to love. I would look back over my shoulder about every three minutes
Me: “Is he still back there?! We really have a corgi?!”
E: deadpan: “yes, he hasn’t escaped the crate, which he is locked in, nor the Jeep, which is locked and driving.

He quickly falls asleep in the car and snoozes on and off the entire way home.

We stopped and walked him a every couple hours. We also got lost trying to find the Wendys in Cumberland, Maryland, this very ghetto old rundown Appalachian Mountain town. While we were walking him around the parking lot, these gang bangers came over with a spike-collared pitbull, who barked and lunged at Linus. Linus just kept bopping around sniffing at the ground and didn’t cower, growl, or really react at all. At this point, I am asking Earl “maybe he’s retarded? he just seems so happy and delusional and not really reacting to that big mean dog.” Earl assures me our dog is not retarded, but does pause to question my own IQ at this point.

Get home around 12:30, put him in the crate and try to go to bed. I can’t fall asleep because I am STILL so amped up and excited. I keep looking over the bed to see him in the crate, and then grin like a fool. I have a problem. The cat is PISSED and stays in her amazon.com box all night.

The following morning I took him for a 3 mile walk/jog to Randall’s Island. We stopped a few times for water twice and stretching, but by the afternoon he was dead tired.  I think perhaps 3 miles off the bat was somewhat overambitious. Going to try and work him up to that. We bought him some “tuffpaws” for his feet for running, but still I am thinking we overdid the jog. He perked up a bit following a snooze, although he did want to take the elevator instead of the stairs (we are on the 2nd floor… so tough!) after his nighttime walk.

Helping me read the paper:

Playing “fetch” with his soft fleecy ball. We’ve been careful to only get him softer toys that won’t hurt his mouth with no teeth. This is awesome because they get uber slime-coated when he gums them.

His breath is freaking RANK. Guess that is a side effect of having no teeth? Yiesh. I brushed his toofuses for him – the meat flavored toothpaste wasn’t exactly a joy, either!

A few things happened which made me think he was probably beaten before in his earlier life. When we got back from jogging, I was closing the patio door with my running sneaks in my hand. I turned around, and he happened to get softly whacked on the snout with my shoe (very softly) because he was right behind me. I didn’t even really feel him get hit it was so soft, but he YELPED and WHIMPERED and ears completely flattened back immediately rolled over on his back, belly exposed and paws in the air, crying at me. Poor guy. :( Also he is clearly intimidated by/submissive to the cat… so I guess that is good the two of them have their power structure worked out. I am guessing a run-in with a non-declawed, meaner kitty while he was a stray?

He likes the cat! He wants to play with her, she wants to growl at him. He is mainly seems curious about her.

You can see here some of his scar tissue on the side of his face from when he was a stray (he also has a dime-sized piece of scar tissue on his snout, right in the middle above his nose) and a couple of what the adoption agent referred to as “hot spots” where he chewed off his own fur on his legs and knees due to stress. She said in time, they may grow back, but not sure.

By the end of the day, the two of them made peace and both snuggled up on each side of me as I was uploading some of the 8 zillion pics I took of our adventure. Right now I think I am the happiest and luckiest girl in the world!
We love ya, Linus!