Life with two corgis

I am diverging from my usual blog post style of insightful rambling to share a bit of a life update.

If you follow me on social media, you probably know that my boyfriend, Nick, and I just brought home our second corgi baby, Fiona. Over the past couple of weeks we have received SO many questions about Fiona, about how she and Flex are getting along, and about having a puppy in general. I wanted to share our experience not only to update our friends & family on how life with two corgis is going, but to hopefully offer some insight and advice into the process of finding a puppy and owning & raising a corgi (or two!).

Let me start with a bit of background. Nick brought home baby Flex before he and I met back in October of 2016. Lucky for me, I came into their lives about a month later, and instantly fell in love with sweet, spunky, loving Flex. I still remember the day that Nick said to me, “I guess this means you’re Flex’s mom now” and how happy that made me.

Nick got super lucky with finding Flex. At the time, he was working from home and living alone, and he wanted a pup to keep him company. After deciding that he wanted a corgi, he called around to about 10-15 different corgi breeders in the area to see who might have a puppy looking for a home. He found a breeder in southwest Virginia who had one boy, then named Jefferson, available, and the rest was history.

Flex has been a dream (besides those couple times he chewed the couch…) and we knew that when we were ready to bring home a second dog, we would get them from the same breeder. We were able to keep in touch with her and stay up to date on her available litters. When we reached out to her earlier this year, we were thinking maybeeee we would get a second dog this fall. But of course, she just so happened to have a new litter with four available pups, and we could not resist going to see them. And come on, you cannot drive 3.5 hours to go visit some corgi puppies and NOT end up agreeing to take one home.

This time around was a little different since she had multiple puppies for us to choose from, as opposed to when Nick got Flex he was the only one left (lucky for us, they saved the best for last). We originally thought we would choose a tri-color boy, however when we got to meet the babies I fell in love with this sable colored girl with two different colored eyes. A little while ago, Nick and I were obsessed with the show “Shameless” and decided that if we ever got a girl dog, we would name her Fiona after the show’s main character. Well this little blue-eyed girl struck me instantly as a Fiona, and I was sold.

We brought Fiona home about a month ago now, and she has truly been a joy. She is the happiest, sassiest, friendliest baby girl and instantly settled into our little family. Flex has done really well with his little sister. He was definitely skeptical at first, but she quickly showed him that she would easily match his sass. They play constantly, and when they’re not playing, they’re usually cuddling in the CUTEST ways. Nick and I could not be happier to have her in our lives. She makes our little family complete.

Now to answer some of the questions we get frequently (I need to print this post out and carry copies around with me on walks so I can hand it out to all the strangers that stop us and ask these same questions, lol).

Why did you choose a corgi?
To be honest, I never really thought about having a corgi of my own until meeting Flex. Nick chose a corgi because of their size (great for small city apartments), their temperament, and of course the fact that they are so crazy CUTE! After having Flex for 2+ years and falling in love with corgis in general, we knew a second one had to be in our future. Corgis are incredibly intelligent dogs with huge personalities. Aside from literally being the cutest (and having the best butts), they are so much fun. They have tons of energy and are always up for adventures, but they are also super loving and snuggly.

What don’t you like about the breed?
I tell people this all the time — the only bad thing I have to say about these dogs is that they shed. A LOT. Vacuuming and brushing are frequent events in our home. But honestly we wouldn’t have it any other way. The hair is manageable and a small price to play for the happiness they bring into our lives!

Are they related?
Yes! Flex and Fiona have the same mom. Flex was part of their mom’s first litter, and Fiona was part of her third and last. They do have different dads.

Do Flex and Fiona get along?
They do! Fiona immediately fell in love with her brother. On day one, she wanted to be near him 24/7. She will constantly cuddle up next to him and he lets her do it. He loves to use her as a headrest, lol. And they play a lot. Flex can be slightly possessive over things like toys and bones, so we were wondering how he would adapt to constantly having another dog in his space. But to our surprise he got used to it very quickly and has been very gentle and patient with his little sis.

Why not rescue a dog instead?
Nick and I both have huge hearts for animals and truly support rescuing/adopting your animals. We both grew up with rescue animals and loved them dearly. We fell in love with the corgi breed and knew that they came from an ethical, small breeder who treats all of her dogs and litters as family and isn’t in it for the money. We would never support puppy mills or commercialized puppy stores. We feel comfortable in our decision to get Flex and Fiona from a trusted, local breeder. One day when we have more space, we have plans to rescue many dogs! We also love supporting our local corgi rescue, East Coast Corgi Rescue, as well as other shelters throughout the DC area through donations and fundraisers.

What are their personalities like?
Silly, sassy and SO loving. Like I said before, they have huge personalities. They are goofy and high energy and need a lot of exercise and stimulation. But at the end of the day, they always want to be near their people and just give off so much love. As long as they get enough attention and training at home, they are super friendly in public and well behaved around other dogs.

How difficult is it to train a corgi puppy?
Corgis are super smart dogs, which can make them easy to train but also means they can be quick to rebel if not trained properly. We have had Fiona for a little over a month now (she just turned four months old), and she is pretty much fully potty trained (minus the occasional accident when she plays too much and drinks too much water) and she has already learned a few basic commands such as sit, stay and come. Yummy, healthy treats and a lot of patience are critical to this process. We did not take her to a puppy training class because we wanted to see how she took to our training first, and so far it has been very manageable. The key is to consistently enforce good behavior and calmly reprimand any bad behavior. She is a puppy, she WILL act out — it’s all a learning process! But they can learn very quickly as long as you are patient and consistent as an owner.

It can be difficult to work on training a puppy while having another dog around. Flex always wants in on the training treats. Corgis love to be stimulated, and Flex really enjoys the process of learning new tricks. So getting Fiona to focus on her training without having Flex as a distraction has been the only difficult part!

Are you doing anything different with training Fiona than you did with Flex?
Like I mentioned, I met Nick and Flex about a month after Nick brought Flex home, so I was not there for the initial training. Since Nick worked from home, he spent a ton of time with Flex, which allowed for him to train Flex rather quickly but also allowed Flex to develop some pretty severe separation anxiety. With Fiona, we are having her spend more time alone in her crate as well as crate training her at night. She took to crate training very quickly, and even when we are home we will put her in her crate for a few hours during the day so she gets comfortable with being in there.

That answers most of the common questions we get, but if you have any other questions about life with two corgis, feel free to ask them down below! And for more regular corgi content, feel free to follow us on Instagram at @flexandfiona 🙂 Thanks for following our journey!