Orbit the Cardigan Corgi

Orbit turned 5 months old. Last week, we received his AKC certificate in the mail containing his official name “Orbit Plus Infinity Aelhearn”. The last bit is Welsh, meaning “iron head” which is beyond fitting.

Alice has seen a big change in him in the last week with how he is leash walking. I’ve noticed he’s much more confident around the neighborhood, trotting along like he owns the place. He generally leads us across the street to the small dog run to sniff around when he’s in a walking mood.

We also have been going to a dog park in Marlton NJ that allows him to run wherever he wants. Given his “iron-headedness”, his recall isn’t so hot, so we keep a 6’ lead on him that we can stomp if he runs off to certain doom.

He finished his puppy class last Wednesday. The last two weeks were the most challenging (for both him and Alice) because it concentrated on “loose leash walking” and he sucks at that. Combine that with the fact that he isn’t much interested in food or treats and it is really hard to train him or motivate him to do what you want. While other puppies are hopping up and down trying to get the treat used to give them positive reinforcement, he just sits there and acts like they are all idiots.

He’s been going through a barky phase lately. His gigantic ears pick up sounds that no human can so we’ll be sitting around chilling and all of a sudden he’ll get up and bark like someone was stealing his buried bones from the backyard. I am fine with a bark here or there to warn us we’re about to be robbed but barking at every stray sound is something I’m not too excited about. Alice found that, as you’d expect, if you wear him out with a walk or lots of obedience training, he barely barks at all. It’s just hard to find time sometimes.

We are going to create a training plan to start systematically training certain behaviors. We’ll start with the stuff we need him to do, like not puppy-bite (or “mouth”) when we’re trying to put on his harness, or come when called every time. Then we’ll move on to him nosing the ball around the apartment and start our Trieball training.

Orbit lost 4 of his teeth last week (two middle top/two middle bottom) and grew his adult teeth back already.  Then yesterday, while destroying an “indestructible” chew toy yesterday he lost two upper canine teeth. That means it’s time to start thinking about getting him snipped and microchipped soon, I guess. 

Walking is still a challenge — some days good, some days bad.  We have been trying to follow the same route every day which is about 1.5 miles and seems to be long enough to get him in the zone where he walks well. Today he ate some goose shit and ended up throwing up goose shit, food and stomach phlegm all over the walking path.  His latest thing is to “herd” me when I’m not going the direction he wants.  He jumps around in front of me, pulls on my shoelaces, etc.  When I stop walking, he ignores me and when I make a move to start walking again he’s herding again. Super annoying.  I combat it now with just stopping and making him sit, which is boring to a puppy.  Then walk, then make him sit, then walk, then make him sit… eventually he gets tired of it and we can walk normally but cripes what a huge pain in the ass.

He has been to Puppy Playtime at Opportunity Barks in Philly a few times now.  He was scared at first and bowled over by bigger puppies often but he has grown more outgoing to the point where he was the annoying barking dog when he went to puppy obedience class the other day, trying to sniff every dog in the room.  It’s true what they say about corgis thinking they are a much bigger dog than they are.

As of this writing, he knows “sit”, “down”, “touch”, “shake”, “other paw” shake, “go to your crate”, “stay” (sort of), “drop it/leave it” (more or less).

He hit 15.5 lbs last week. Hard to believe he’s going to be around twice the size he is now.