[glencorgi]

Originally Posted by Michael Romanos

I had a good chat with an international conformation judge and a Cardi breeder named Bridget and she too is concerned at the dwindling numbers of Cardigan Corgis in parts of the world.

I've met Bridget, very nice lady.

UK registrations for Cardigans over the last 10 years:

"from the Winter 2006 KC Breed Record Supplement
registration figures for Welsh Corgi (Cardigan) from 1997 - 2006
*
1997 : 98
1998 : 83
1999 : 79
2000 : 77
2001 : 50
2002 : 56
2003 : 74
2004 : 76
2005 : 77
2006 : 84
*
the breed with the most registrations was again the Labrador Retriever, with
45,700 registered in 2006"

Bridget has recently exported Cardi pups to the UK. But she says that having recently judged in Finland she discovered that there seems to be as many Cardis in Finland as there are Pems. And Corgis are popular in Finland. In at least one of the shows she judged in Finland, there were 20 more Cardigan than Pem entries.

The exporting of Cardigans from NZ to the UK is a rather normal occurrence as is from NZ to the US as well as from the UK to the US and the reverse. In the US from time to time, Cardigan entries will outnumber Pembroke entries as well.

Here are numbers from Finland:
"Year - Cardigans registered- Pembrokes registered
2002 - 98 - 220
2003 - 132 - 222
2004 - 163 - 214
2005 - 160 - 241
2006 - 157 - 282
CARDIGANS 2002 thru 2006
Number of puppies registered: 683
Number od imports registered: 27
Number of dogs registered: 710 (puppies + imports)
Number of litters registered: 118
Number of stud dogs used: 69
Of those stud dogs, 25 sired multiple litters, accounting for 62% of the dogs registered (= 683 pups)
Of those 25 dogs, 10 produced 260 pups between them, accounting for 35% of the total number registered.
Of those all used stud dogs, 19 imported or non-finnish registrated sired 34% of the dogs registered (=234 pups).
All of this statistics and much more information can be found from Finnish Kennelclub's online database called DogNet (KoiraNet in Finnish): http://jalostus.kennelliitto.fi/frmEtusivu.aspx?Lang=en&R=38"

So as I said, while numbers may be limited in the UK, internationally the Cardigan breed is in pretty sound shape. We even have a couple of US Cardigan breeders who partner with some kennels in Finland.

One of the members of the Wellington Welsh Corgi Walking Club got their Cardi named Megs from a pet shop - of course with no papers. Bridget thinks Megs who acts most un-Cardi-like, is probably a Cardi-Pem cross. She and her several brothers and sisters were selling at pet shops as pure Cardigan Corgis and for much more price-wise than Corgis with pedigree papers sell for in NZ.

Sounds like the US <sigh> and illustration of why a degree of discernment in placing puppies and encouraging breeding is needed.

Debbie