Welcome to Corgiville ...

This weekend is the neighborhood' s annual garage sale. Already, the streets around my house are thick with shoppers and bumper-to-bumper traffic. No place to park on the street, and you have to shoo them away from blocking your driveway.

Walking the dogs is always fun during these sales. They get to meet a lot of people and other dogs. And dog-lovers and most children smile at Jude and Layla -- face it, the stubby little critters are way cute. Not like taking hellhounds out and watching people run to cross the street.

More often than not, when somebody sees the pups, they'll grin and say something. And more often than not, here's how the conversation goes:

"Cute puppies! What kind are they?"

"They're corgis."

(Sometimes they get this much. "Are those corgis?" To which I say, "Yes, they are the Cardigan Welsh variety.)

Eight times out of ten, this comes next:

"Huh. I never saw one that color before." (The other two times, they say: "Huh. I never saw one with a tail before." Sometimes they say both.)

"Well," I explain smiling, "probably most of the ones you've seen are the Pembrokes -- like the Queen of England has? Usually those are brown and white, and the tails, which come in stubby, are generally docked. These are Cardigans, this color is more common among this breed."

Actually, among Cardis, black-and-white with a touch of brindle is the most common color, which means chances are good the speaker has never seen one at all.

My wife and I have heard this so many times it's become a private joke. I want to say, "Oh, yeah, we dyed them that color because it goes with the carpet." Or: "We had tails grafted on because we think is it cuter."

Naturally, I would never actually say this, since that would be obnoxious. It's a passing parade, and simple ignorance, which I can remedy by explaining, and that's part of my job as an owner of a relatively-rare breed. Last time I looked, there were only nine hundred or so Cardigans registered with the AKC, and over ten thousand Pembrokes. Nowhere near the numbers of Labs, which are well over a hundred thousand, but still, Pems are much more common than Cardis. (In fact, another family joke is that the Pembrokes are as common as dirt, leading to the shorthand description, "Jude and Layla and I saw a dirt corgi on our walk today ...

So now you know ...