Hello, My name is Finnegan

[Finnegan]

My name is actually Kevin, my wife is Amy. Finnegan is our 5 month old corgi we rescued from Iowa. He is our 2nd corgi.
Attached are a couple pictures of our recent trip to Bar Harbor

[Cierra30]

He is adorable! Welcome to the group.

[firstrax]

Are Corgis trying to overthrow New Hampshire? I had never even heard of a Corgi before my wife came home with Radar. Now there all over the state. There up to something. Sleep with one eye open.

Cute corgi BTW.

[Michael Romanos]

Finnigan is sure one lucky Corgi getting a fabulous boat trip and being able to take in THAT view from the hill.
Lovely fellow.
The new American from Mitchigan I had spoke recently to(she and her hubbie now live pretty close to me in Wellington, New Zealand along with their Pem Corgi) said very few people in Mitchigan had ever seen or heard of a Corgi. It seems that everyone in NZ knows about Corgis.

[Jane Austen]

Welcome Kevin, Amy and Finnegan. I hope to meet you at one of our corgi Playdates. Can you tell us the story of your rescue of Finnegan from Iowa?
Do you now own two corgis? Do you have some pictures of your first one?

Firstrax, Did we meet you at one of our gatherings in Portsmouth or Derry? I know the name Radar is very familiar. The one I am thinking of was a very young red and white. And I believe it was in Portsmouth.

[Vannette]

Welcome Kevin, Amy and of course Finnegan!! Cute name and extra cute dog!!
Vannette

[fogebotom]

Welcome from Iowa! What rescue did you get him from?? We have a couple of great groups out here that do wonderful work.

Cindy, the crew and the soon to be 4 pack
Brrrrr-- it's cold in Iowa today
www.foggybottomusa.com

[Finnegan]

To answer the question about our first corgi,

His name was Rees, In October of 06 He was diagnosed with GME. Which is a horrible disease that takes over a dog’s nervous system. It basically is swelling of the nerves surrounding his brain.

He was admitted to Angell medical in Boston were he was monitored for a few days. The seizures seemed to be under control so we took him home. They put him on all kinds of medication. After a few months he had another series of seizures which began to have a permanent affect on him. We brought him back to Angell and they adjusted his medication to make the seizures go away. The neurologist had assured us they had many cases similar to his were the dog lived a healthy life several years after diagnosis. We brought him home but he was not himself. He could no longer jump on the bed or the couch. He began to loose control of the right side of his face. We began to realize how serious it was.

Six month later he had what would end up being his final seizure. He seized and never came out of it. It was the worst feeling I’ve ever had. Seeing him in an uncontrollable state was the worst thing we’d ever seen. We rushed him to our local emergency vet. All they could do was give him a shot a velum to knock him out and make the pain go away until we got him to Boston so the neurologist could see him. They admitted him for the night and saw no improvement. Every time they decreased the velum to bring him out of it he began to have seizures.

That day we made the hardest decision we ever had to make. We decided to make his pain go away. Which gave my wife and I more pain than we had ever felt.

Here is a link to his dogster profile, it has not been updated since his passing but I thought I’d share his pictures.
Dog profile for Rees, a male Pembroke Welsh Corgi

I’ll follow up later with Finnegan’s Rescue story that is linked to Rees’s story later.

[firstrax]

Originally Posted by Jane Austen

Firstrax, Did we meet you at one of our gatherings in Portsmouth or Derry? I know the name Radar is very familiar. The one I am thinking of was a very young red and white. And I believe it was in Portsmouth.

Nope. Never been to a gathering. Radar is a tri color.

[Michael Romanos]

That's a sad story. Dogs can get any amount of rare and relatively rare diseases and ailments just like us humans. Often it happens despite the 110 percent effort put in to raise a healthy, well adjusted dog.

[Jane Austen]

I know we met with another Radar, I think it was either the friend of Pat that had a pembroke or a couple had one that accidently came upon our group. Do you remember Pat?

I'm looking forward to the story of how you got Finnegan. It is sad to have lost a lovely dog like Rees, you went further than most people would have gone to save him. I am waiting to hear how their stories are connected.

[MattC]

He's a cute one. Judging from photo 1 it looks like he is just getting his sea legs

[Finnegan]

After a month or so of living without Rees we new we needed another dog so we began browsing petfinder every night but could not find a corgi in the area. Then a good friend of ours Julie called us one night to let us know she had found a corgi in Iowa and had already contacted the Rescue to find out if he was available. He was and they were waiting to hear from us. Julie had told them Rees’s story and they thought we’d be the perfect family for trouble(we later renamed him Finnegan).

We contacted the Rescue and found out more about Finnegan. His mother was rescued from a puppy mill that had hundreds of dogs. She was pregnant with him at the time. Finnegan was born while his mother was at a foster home. He contracted Parvo soon after being born. The first couple months of his life were very rough. He pulled through. Knowing that he had survived a horrible disease like parvo made us want him more.

So the adoption was finalized through e-mail and phone calls. Now we had to figure out how to get him from Iowa to NH. Our friend who found him began trying to arrange a transport. She is a pro at this because she is the president of the New England Doglift(NED) rescue org. What NED does is rescue dogs from the southern states that are slated to be euthanized and transports them to NH to be fostered then adopted. So she is regularly scheduling transports but this is from the Midwest, a little different than what she is used to. But within a few days we had many people stepping forward to help. We had people offering to drive a few different legs of the journey, we even had a pilot offer to fly him from Ohio to Manchester. Luckily we had found someone who new someone in Iowa visiting there family. Finnegan’s foster mother transported him a couple hours to meat our transporter. She flew him home for us to Boston.

We are now going into our 3rd week of obedience class and he is doing great. If only I could get him to stop chasing our cat.

Fogobotom,
Unfortunately I do not remember the name of the rescue. I’m sure I have it with my paper work. I know it was in the Council Bluff area.

MattC,
He is very small for his age. Our Vet thinks it may be because of the Parvo, possibly stunned his growth. I think he’s weighing in at about 17-18lbs right now.


Thanks for all the great comments.

[Michael Romanos]

Whatever you do, don't attempt to have his weight at the level of a medium size Pem. Being small in stature will reduce the ideal weight he should be.
I think chasing the family cat will come down to eventually coming to terms with the cat and its position within the family circle. It probably will never stop him chasing other cats etc.

[Jane Austen]

My corgi, Duchess chases our cat all the time but doesn't want to catch him because Powder is much taller and almost the same weight as Duchess. The turning point in their relationship was when the cat had the dog in a headlock. Those lethal nails were too much for Duchess. They have worked out a satisfactory coexistance now.