Alert the Corgis!

Last week, I watched The Queen on DVD. It’s an excellent movie, that tells a familiar story from a unfamiliar perspective. It’s remarkable to me how much the actors both looked and talked so much like their real-life characters. Helen Mirren absolutely rocked my socks off. She portrayed the titular Queen with pitch-perfect stoic, self-restraint while still mixing in subtle glimpses of humanity and compassion. But as well-deserved as was her Academy Award, Mirren was totally upstaged by dogs. The Queen’s famed pack of Corgis, that is. If I’d made the same movie, all due respect to Princess Diana’s memory, it would have been a love story between Queen Elizabeth and her pack of scruffy, stubby-butted happy friends.

My love affair with Corgis dates back to toddler-hood. Close family friends in Charlottesville had several Corgis, and they were the first “doggies” I fell in love with at age three. Ever since, as far back as I can remember, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi has been my dream dog. My family had a prickly, fey Sheltie for nearly ten years instead (R.I.P. Caspian). Since my senior year of high school I have moved apartments every 9 to 12 months, like clock-work. This has amounted to a new place to call “home” every year, at least, for the last 8 years. That, my friends, is a lot of bubble-wrap and Uhaul vans. Such a nomadic existence is not exactly conducive to maintaining a happy dog’s home life (although for a year in college I did have a pet mouse named Professor Tinkelbottom to fill the void).

But now that my life is beginning to move towards some semblance of permanence, my puppy dreams have become entirely insatiable. I am obsessed. The Fiance is afraid to take me to a public park, for fear that I might dog-nap some hapless pooch as my own. Luckily, he also wants a dog just about as much as I do and have him nearly convinced of the Corgi’s canine superiority. We’ve made a “puppies before babies” pact and now my dogological clock is sounding like a five-alarm firehouse bell.

I’ve already been emailing breeders and spending time better spent studying on browsing Corgi puppies online. I double-dog dare you to browse through and not be melted by cuteness into a puddle on the floor. There’s a lot things we hope for in apartment for next fall, but high on the list, next to a dishwasher and no cockroaches, is “allows pets” somewhere in the lease.

In the midst of finals-hell over the last few weeks, the following came to me via email from The Fiance:Yes, he is a winner. And there is no possible way, even eye-ball deep in securities regulation, not to be cheered by a pack of Corgis. But for now, I’ll settle for just one.