Bovina’s fourth birthday was two days ago. On the one hand it’s impossible to believe that four years minus six weeks have passed since my son and I picked her up at Red Elephant Farms (specializing in breeding Welsh Pembroke Corgis in the Atlanta area); on the other hand, it’s just as hard to remember any time when Bovina was not the central element in and the CEO of Jeanne’s and my lives. Although I have written about and mentioned her many times in various essays, I realized the other day that I have never dedicated a whole blog post just to her. Here goes!
Shortly after Bovina arrived at our house at the conclusion of an eighteen-hour (it seemed longer) drive straight through from Atlanta to Providence (neither Jeanne nor I recommend doing that if you are thinking of it–Bovina handled it beautifully, but we didn’t), people would ask what Bovina’s “adjustment period” was after she arrived. My honest answer was that there was no adjustment period. She walked into the house, said “I’m in charge,” and nothing has been the same since.
Corgis are extroverted, loud, bossy, loving, playful, stubborn, easily bored, and incredibly smart. The other day on a Facebook corgi owners site that I am part of, someone posted “Am thinking about getting a corgi. What is the downside?” My contribution in response was “If you don’t mind endless shedding, bossiness, and noise, there is no downside!” Bovina has more personality than most human beings I’ve ever met, including me. Jeanne and I have enjoyed watching her personality develop as her likes and preferences are revealed as she encounters new situations.
And then there’s how she relaxes. Bovina prefers to lay on our hardwood floors than to curl up in any of the dog beds that she has available. Our dachshund Winnie used to flip on her back to get her belly rubbed, but flat on her back with all body parts, including private ones, on display is one of Bovina’s preferred ways to sleep. Thinking that this was unique to Bovina, I posted pictures of her sleeping on her back on Facebook.
As it turns out, this is a general corgi preference–within ten minutes at least two dozen other corgi owners posted pictures of their upside-down sleeping canine. Corgis also like to lay on their stomachs with their back legs stretched out behind them, a posture called “splooting.” Bovina only does a half-assed version of this, with the bottom pads of her back feet peaking out from the bottom of her tail-less rump.
Before I found out that all corgis like to sleep on their back, several friends told me that when a dog sleeps like that, it is a sign that they are very comfortable in their surroundings. It is a sign, one friend suggested, of “absolute trust.” Upside-down sleeping means that they are completely comfortable with being vulnerable because they have no reason not to be. I like that explanation better than the “this is just how corgis roll” explanation, even though absolute trust might actually be how corgis roll. Jeanne and I have had four dogs before Bovina, all of whom were at least a year old when they showed up at our house. None of them slept on their back. Two of them were rescues with all sorts of inexplicable and odd personality quirks that we always attributed to some trauma or series of traumas that happened before they met us.
Bovina has had no such trauma in her short life. She spent her first six weeks in Georgia, then the rest of her four years so far with two people who love her so much that I’m surprised she can stand it. No one has ever hit Bovina, yelled at her (not much, anyways), put her in a cage, locked her up somewhere she didn’t want to be, forgotten to feed her, or failed to attend to every one of her perceived needs—you get the point. Bovina has no reason not to absolutely trust that all things will work together for her good. Because they do.
Many people know of corgis because of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s obsession with them, but corgis were originally bred as herding dogs, specifically cow herding. Their aggressiveness, intelligence, amazing speed, and general boisterousness all serve this job description, as do their short legs which enable them to run underneath as well as behind cows seeking to gather the herd together. These features are hard-wired into them and show up even when there are no cows around.
In her early weeks in Providence, Bovina would frequently follow Jeanne around the house nipping at her heels (she seldom did this to me). When I texted Rebecca at Red Elephant Farms and asked why Bovina was doing this, she said, “This means Jeanne is Bovina’s favorite cow.” Bovina is still a herder–when Jeanne goes to bed to read while I remain in the living room watching the Red Sox on tv, Bovina does her best to nudge me out of my chair into the bedroom so the whole herd can sleep together in safety.
Before Bovina, Jeanne and I had a triumvirate of dogs for several years, two dachshunds and a Boston Terrier. Dachshunds are territorial, pack oriented, somewhat stuck up, and not particularly enamored of human beings other than those in their pack. As they continually ignored people and each other over the years, Jeanne often said “I’m a very friendly person. All I want is a dog who is friendly and likes people!”
Someone apparently was listening, because Bovina has never met a human beings that she doesn’t like and whom she does not expect to love her back. She has a well-developed routine for attracting the attention of strangers on walks, seeking to seduce the stranger into not only petting her but confirming everyone’s general judgment that “this is the friendliest, sweetest, and most beautiful dog I’ve ever seen!” Bovina thrives on affirmation.
All of this was on full display last week. Jeanne was away with family duites for a few days, I didn’t want Bovina to be by herself at home for too many hours at once (although she has never done a single destructive thing in the house when left alone), so I brought her to my office (a 10-12minute walk from home) for two hours of office hours on both Wednesday and Friday. [Side bar: It is not entirely clear whether dogs are allowed on campus, but this is definitely one of those ask forgiveness rather than permission things. Anyways, I’m senior faculty–what are they going to do about it?] Bovina is no stranger to campus. We take a 1.5 mile walk every morning first thing; a loop through campus is one of the three or four regular routes we take. Nor are people on campus unaware of Bovina’s existence. Because of my habit of sharing Bovina pictures on Facebook, colleagues who have never met Bovina in the fur will randomly ask me “How’s Bovina?” several times per week.
At the office she met our new office adminstrator for the first time and reacted appropriately, standing on her hind legs to make it easier to pet her, licking Wendy’s face when she leaned over, wiggling her tail-less hindquarters, and so on. In my office I left the door open a bit, supposing that she would settle down and fall asleep. Wrong. Ten mintues later I realized she was gone. I found her out in the foyer schmoozing with a couple of students who were mooning over her; she apparently had also invited herself into the office of a young Domincan priest colleague two doors down and introduced herself.
She behaved similarly on Friday–Bovina knows how to work a room. She is unbelieveably well-behaved when out of the house–quiet and demure, relying on her cuteness to seduce everyone. Which it does. Perhaps you can tell that I am besotted with this animal. Regular readers know how connected I was to Frieda, our dachshund who moved on in 2018. I’ve often wondered how Frieda and Bovina would have gotten along–they are not at all alike. Frieda was like the queen, deigning to show her affection and attention on her terms. At home, Bovina is like a 31-pound CEO, in your face, demanding your attention, giving inside orders in an outside voice–but irresistable. Happy birthday, Bo!
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