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These are my pair:

Left is Pixel, Pembroke Welsh Corgi x Chihuahua. We got him almost two years ago now. He's got a lot of energy and he's really smart. We've been going to some obedience class or another since we got him, to keep his mind busy. We're doing agility with him right now.
Right is Ruby, Beagle x Mutt. We've had her almost a year. She's got even more energy than Pixel, and she likes to run and jump. And escape. She was picked up as a stray, and we're pretty sure it was because she escaped her yard and was just never found.


Pixel was the biggest puppy in his litter of seven, and they called him Grizzly because of it. When we went to see the litter, there were only three puppies left; tri-colour female, a sable male, and a tri-colour male (Pixel). His mum had died in puppy-birth, so he never had someone to teach him dog manners; he was quite the handful, with almost no bite inhibition, but we worked through it.
When we first got him, I started calling him poop-factory as a joke, but then he started answering to it, so I stopped.
Neutering was a pain with him, since he was cryptorchid. One of the reasons I wanted a male was because the neuter recovery is so much easier than a spay recovery, but he basically ended up with the same recovery period as a female; it was horrible trying to keep him from over exerting himself for a whole two weeks!
I wanted to take him to Treibball classes since he seemed to have a lot of fun herding balls in the yard, but the only trainer in the area that was teaching them wasn't doing lessons at the time. We've done obedience, and tricks, and Rally-O and agility classes with him.
He's fearless and bold, and will stand up to other dogs no matter how big they are. He's only 20 lbs, but is in the medium category for our weekly play group (and is the smallest one among dogs the size of Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds). He's very stubborn, and unless there's an obvious reward in it for him (treat in hand, or door already open to go outside), you can see him weighing the pros and cons of listening to instructions before deciding whether or not to do what you say.
He's smart; enough so that you have to stay very focused to keep up with him sometimes. Sometimes it seems like he has unlimited energy, but it's more that he doesn't know when he's had enough and he'll keep pushing himself at 110% well past his limit. He's fast for a dog with such short legs, but that's mostly due to him pushing himself faster and faster to keep up with the dogs at the dog park.


Ruby is ditzy. She's got an excellent nose on her, which gets her into trouble. She's constantly trying to get out; when she's in the house, she wants outside. When she's in the yard, she wants out of the yard. When she's at the dog park, she wants out of the dog park. When we go to doggy swim, she wants out of the swim.
She's nuts about food. When there's food involved, she almost can't remember what words she knows, and she'll just start throwing tricks at you.
She LOVES to run. We're pretty sure she's got Whippet in her, and she can really move. She likes to play chase, but in most cases she can only play chase where she's the one getting chased - and then she has to hold back - since she's so fast. I can only think of two times when we came across dogs that could keep up with her; once was a pair of whippets, and the second time was a German Short-haired Pointer.
When we adopted her, the adoption agency told us that she wasn't very smart, and that she'd need a harness to walk politely on a leash. It didn't take very long before I had her walking decently on a leash, and she's been in almost every obedience class Pixel's been in and gotten top of the class in most of her classes.
Since we figure she's mostly Beagle, I do a lot of focus work with her. Our obedience trainer is quite impressed with the amount of focus she has, not even just considering she's a scent hound, but in general.
She's very anxious, and she flips out when people leave, even if she's not being left alone. At the end of our classes, when people get up and start going out the door, she starts whining and trying to get to them, even if she hasn't even met them. Other dogs when we're on our walk gets her worked up too. We're getting better, but we can start getting more practice now that the weather's warming up and there's more people out and about with their dogs now.

More pictures of Ruby
More pictures of Pixel
More pictures of them together
Pixel's daily puppy feature

Ruby and Pixel do some Rally-O:

Wow, thank you for sharing so much about your dogs, Dwarvyn Ruby and Pixel and gorgeous, and I really enjoyed reading about them and seeing so many pictures. That is the first time I have ever seen a dog in a tree!

Thank you! They're kind of my special interest

That ladder wasn't there when she climbed the tree btw; it was added afterward to help get her down (everyone seems to assume that she climbed the ladder to get up there when they see the picture, but she climbed the tree itself).

I did not see that coming! I too thought she had climbed up using the ladder. That's even more of a wow factor.

By the way, I forgot to say that I enjoyed the video too. Ruby was so focused on you (I'm assuming that you were the one leading her through agility). The adoption agency was wrong, she seems smart and very focused.

Aye; that was I. I have watched that movie many times myself... I like watching her and Pixel; how much fun they're having basically playing Simon Says

i never realized how popular my dog was after being recognized by strangers on a street where i almost never walk her.

*squeals*: http://bit.ly/1XPT7gZ

Is that a Cardigan? You almost never see them around here; just the Pembrokes.

Yup

I want a kitty. My mum keeps saying that they are a lot of work to take care of, but our old cat Monkey Pi wasn't that hard to take care of.

Cardis are on my short list for breeds, along with the Pems and Vallhunds (among others). Of course with any luck, we won't be in the market for one for a good 10-12 years or more


Kittens are more work than cats, and introducing a new animal into the home (baby or adult) can be a lot of work, even if they end up being not so much work after they get settled. And there's no guarantees about how much work the new cat will end up being once it does get settled.

If you think she's overreacting, maybe suggest being a foster for a local rescue? It's a shorter-term situation, and I believe they usually cover expenses like vet bills, food, etc. Plus then you'd be helping out a rescue animal!

*squeals*

that carpet. i want to sleep on it.

We just finished another agility class with Pixel, and we ended up getting top of the class once again

We were up against a German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, and a Brittany Spaniel... with all the dogs jumping the same height. Which is unfair, since Pixel was the only one who was jumping at his actual competition height of 16", but I guess since he got the top score that makes it okay?

I wish I would have remembered to have it recorded; we had the camera with us, we just forgot to take it out.

I have 2 cats, Ahab who is going to be 16 in September, and is a domestic shorthair, and Bert, a 13 year old Maine coon who is popular in the neighborhood.

The family rottie is very noise sensitive, when the phone rings out and goes to voicemail she starts to howl, the little dogs join in but the small shih tzu cant howl so she makes this really high pitched squeak instead, and from the outside it sounds like we have a pack of wolves inside killing a squeak toy.
My niece thought it would be funny to teach them to howl together, and I have absolutely no idea how to stop it.

You could try teaching them something else to do when the voicemail comes on, that would make it so they can't howl, like going and grabbing a toy; toy in the mouth means they can't howl.

Another option would be to set up the situation where they are doing the behaviour you don't like (in this case, have someone call and leave a voicemail). When the trigger goes off but before they start doing the behaviour, you give them a treat for not engaging in the behaviour. If you find you can't intervene fast enough, you may need to distract them so that you can get in your reward before they start howling. Over time, you should be able to keep them quiet longer and longer until they no longer howl at the trigger. I'm not sure how many dogs you have, but you may need to work with them one-on-one to begin with then get them together. Or if it's just the Rottie that starts it and the others just join in, you may only need to work with her and the rest will follow her lead once she learns to stay quiet.