Pembroke Welsh Corgi Puppies

A drover’s dog from the hills of Wales

The name is Welsh and it is a description rather than a flourish: cor for dwarf and ci for dog, which softens to gi inside the compound. A corgi is a dwarf dog, and in south-west Wales that was a job title. The Pembroke worked cattle on smallholdings and drove them along the roads to market, moving stock by running in at their heels and staying low enough that a swinging hoof went over the top of it. Everything about the outline — the length, the depth of chest, the short legs, the speed off the mark — was selected by farmers who needed one small dog to do the work of a man on a horse.

How the breed arrived in Pembrokeshire has two accounts and both are still argued cheerfully. One traces it to the spitz-type herders the Vikings brought west, which would make the Swedish Vallhund a cousin. The other says Henry I invited Flemish weavers to settle in south-west Wales in 1107, and that they came with their looms and their dogs together. The Pembroke and the Cardigan were shown as one breed in Britain until 1934, when the Kennel Club separated them; the American Kennel Club recognized the Pembroke the same year.

Then there is the version the Welsh tell. Corgis, the story goes, were the working animals of the fair folk — harnessed to their carriages, ridden into their battles — and the faint shading across a Corgi’s shoulders is where the fairy saddle sat. Stand a red-and-white puppy in good afternoon light and look at the marking over the withers, and you can see how somebody came to think of it.

Low to the ground, and every inch on purpose

An adult Pembroke stands about ten to twelve inches at the shoulder and weighs a little under thirty pounds, with the males somewhat heavier than the females. That is a great deal of dog in a short frame: heavy bone, a deep chest that drops between the front legs, a level back and real muscle across the hindquarters. Picking one up is a two-arm job, and the weight always surprises people who have only met the breed on a screen.

The head is the fox-like part, with a broad flat skull and large erect ears set well apart, wide at the base and rounded at the tip. The eyes are oval and dark and the expression is interested in everything. Puppies often go through a fortnight with one ear up and the other still thinking about it, which is entirely normal and worth photographing while it lasts.

The tail is the quickest way to tell a Pembroke from a Cardigan. A Pembroke’s is short, sometimes a natural bob, while a Cardigan carries a long tail like a fox brush. The Cardigan is also a little larger and heavier through the body, with bigger, rounder ears and a wider range of colour that takes in merle. Side by side the two are obviously relatives and obviously not the same dog.

Red, sable, fawn, and black and tan

The coat is a medium-length double coat: a straight, weather-resistant outer coat over a thick soft undercoat, longer and fuller through the ruff at the neck, chest and shoulders and down the backs of the legs. It sits close to the body, it turns a Florida downpour better than it looks like it should, and day to day it asks for very little.

The colours are red, sable, fawn, and black and tan, usually with white on the legs, chest, neck, muzzle and underparts, and often a narrow blaze up the face. Sable puppies change the most: the black tipping over the back and ears lifts and shifts as the adult coat grows in, so the dog you carry out at ten weeks is not quite the dog you have at ten months. Some litters throw a long-coated puppy, called a fluffy, with a much longer, softer coat and heavy feathering through the ears, legs and tail. It sits outside the show standard and it is a very handsome pet dog.

A big dog that happens to be short

Pembrokes are bold, cheerful and thoroughly convinced of their own importance. This is a herding breed that spent centuries making decisions at speed a foot off the ground, and the confidence that came with the job is still in there. A Corgi walks into a room, works out where everybody is, and joins in.

They are affectionate with their own people and generally friendly with everyone else, and they like being in the middle of a busy household — the kitchen at dinner time is the natural station. They get on well with other dogs and with cats they have grown up around. They also have a voice, and a carrying one for the size, so you will know when the mail arrives. Most owners settle into the routine the breed has always suited: go and look together, thank the dog, get on with the day.

The other thing worth knowing about is the sploot. A Corgi at rest often lies with its hind legs stretched straight out behind it, flat on a cool floor, looking like something dropped from a height. It is a Corgi speciality and it never stops being funny.

Walks, brushing and the twice-yearly turnover

Two good walks a day suit a Pembroke, and it will take considerably more if you have it going. This is drover’s stamina in a compact package, and a Corgi is happiest with somewhere to go and something to think about on the way. In a Florida or Tennessee summer the early and late hours are the pleasant ones for both of you, with shade and a cool floor in between.

The coat asks for a brush a couple of times a week with a slicker and a comb, working through the ruff and the trousers where the hair is longest. Twice a year the undercoat turns over with the seasons: for a fortnight the rake comes out daily, you fill a bag with soft undercoat, and then the coat comes back in fresh and the routine returns to normal. Baths are occasional rather than scheduled. Nails a little and often, ears wiped as part of the same session, and teeth brushed early enough that a puppy decides the toothbrush is simply another thing that happens.

Training a dog that came with a job

Pembrokes are quick, food-motivated and genuinely fun to teach. They were bred to take direction at a distance and to think for themselves in between, which is exactly the combination that makes them good at obedience, agility and trick work, and it is why Corgis still turn up at herding trials generations after the last of their ancestors saw a cow.

Keep sessions short and well paid, ask for one thing at a time, and finish while the dog still wants another go. Everyone in the house wants to use the same words for the same things, because a Corgi will absolutely notice the difference. Give the herding instinct somewhere to go early — a ball to drive, a tug toy, a handful of kibble scattered in the grass — and the rest tends to sort itself out.

Socialization fills the rest of the first year. New people, new floors, car rides, umbrellas, hats, wheeled bins, calm adult dogs going about their business. A Corgi that has met a hundred ordinary things by six months treats the hundred and first as ordinary too.

Come and meet the Corgi puppies

Photographs flatten a Corgi into a cartoon. Standing next to one you notice the substance instead: the bone, the depth of chest, and the way it plants itself and looks up at you with both ears aimed in your direction like it is about to make a point.

Our Pembroke Welsh Corgi puppies come from our network of licensed breeders, and our team can tell you how a particular puppy has been getting on. We have a store in Orlando and one in Nashville, and you are welcome to sit on the floor and let a puppy come to you before deciding anything. Find directions and hours, and ask about financing while you are here. Every puppy here goes home with its vet records, its vaccination history and a health warranty, and our team will walk you through what those cover.