Welsh Corgis

If you were on a farm in the misty hills of western Wales about a thousand years ago, you would likely see a small but lively dog trotting around, giving its full attention to a lazy herd of cows. The dog looks almost like a fox without legs. Deciding one of the cows is being fractious, the dog darts quickly and confidently, and nips at the cow’s heels, and dodges an annoyed kick. With its work done, the dog trots back over the hill, through the mist, and back home for dinner like it's just another Tuesday.

Hello and welcome back to Doggone History, a light-hearted history of dogs, one breed at a time. I'm your host, Rich Napolitano.

In today’s episode, we’ll be taking the low road. Very low, as in twelve-inches-off-the-ground low. We're talking about one of the most recognizable, most meme-able (if that’s a word), most royally-adjacent dogs on the planet: the Welsh Corgi.

Okay, let’s get this bit out of the way, because I know what some of you are already thinking. “Corgis are not a single breed.” And yes, that is correct! Corgis, or more properly, Welsh Corgis, are in fact two distinct breeds: Pembroke Welsh Corgi, and the Cardigan Welsh Corgi. They are more like cousins rather than siblings, and it might be that these breeds don’t even share the same ancestry. Nevertheless, for purposes of this episode, I will discuss both breeds and point out their similarities and differences. And one more bit of housekeeping, I will mention several names of people, dogs, and places in their Welsh names. I did my due diligence to learn how to pronounce these correctly, but please forgive any inaccuracies. Any error is not due to a lack of effort, I promise you.

Both names come from Welsh counties. Pembrokeshire is down in the southwest corner of Wales. Cardiganshire, now called Ceredigion (keh-reh-DIG-yon), is just up the coast to the north. And for most of their history, these were two distinct regional farm dogs bred by two separate communities of Welsh farmers who, frankly, weren't thinking about breed standards. They were thinking about cattle.

And that word "corgi" itself? Nobody agrees on where it comes from, and I honestly love that. One theory says it's from the Welsh words "cor," meaning dwarf, and "ci," meaning dog. Literally, "dwarf dog." Another theory traces it to an old Welsh word, "curgi," roughly meaning "watch dog" or "to watch over." Either way, you end up with a small, low dog whose entire résumé is built around watching things and refusing to be intimidated by animals fifteen times its size.

Let's begin with the Cardigan Welsh Corgi, because most dog historians agree, this is the older of the two breeds. Some breed historians trace the Cardigan back as much as three thousand years, possibly to dogs brought to Wales by Celtic migrants from Central Europe."

A fascinating fact about the Cardigans, is they have traditionally been associated with the Teckel, or Dachshund, family of dogs. Long body, short legs, sturdy build. Think of the Cardigan as an early cousin of the wiener dog that decided to become a cattle dog instead of a badger hunter.

The Cardigan's original job wasn't just herding. It would run ahead of the cattle herd and clear a path, chasing off predators and trespassing livestock, opening up grazing land for the herd. Later on, its job evolved into a "drover", walking behind the cattle, driving them from Welsh farms all the way to English markets. That’s a really long distance for a dog with such short legs. 

The Cardigan's most identifiable physical trait, the long, fox-like tail, is original equipment. The Cardigan you see today looks, in silhouette, remarkably like the Cardigan that worked those Welsh valleys a thousand years before anyone thought of breed standards.

One name that pops up again and again in Cardigan history is a dog called Bob Llwyd (HLOO-id), born around 1917. He wasn't from registered dogs, but was a good, solid working farm dog. He became the most influential Cardigan stud of the 1920s, and the very first breed standard was reportedly based on him. His son, a red-and-white dog named Golden Arrow, born in 1928, became the first Cardigan dog to earn a championship title, in 1931.

The Cardigan crossed the Atlantic in June of 1932, when the first two Cardigans arrived in the United States. One of them, a female named Cassie, was already an accomplished producer back in England. This despite technically being "mismarked," being white with brindle patches, This apparently didn't matter one bit once people saw the dogs she could produce. The breed's first American champion was a red-and-white female named Megan, born in 1933, and to this day, the Cardigan Welsh Corgi Club of America runs an annual event named in her honor: the Megan Competition.

Now we’ll turn our attention to the Pembroke Corgi, the breed that, if we're honest, most people picture when they hear the word "Corgi." And the story of how the Pembroke came to be is basically a story about Vikings. And who doesn’t like a good Viking story?

Around a thousand years ago, during the Norse invasions of Britain, and a later wave of Flemish weavers settling in parts of Wales, a Spitz-type of dog got introduced into certain Welsh regions. Think foxy face, pointed ears standing straight up, and a tail carried high. The classic "Spitz" silhouette you see in dogs like the Pomeranian or the Swedish Vallhund. One leading theory is that Spitz-type dogs introduced by Scandinavian settlers were crossed with local Welsh herding dogs, eventually contributing to the Pembroke Welsh Corgi."

Meanwhile, the Cardigan developed along its own path in the more isolated region of Cardiganshire, retaining a noticeably different type.

The Pembroke's nearest relatives are believed to include the Swedish Vallhund, the Norwegian Buhund, and the Schipperke; all of them members of that Spitz family. And just like the Cardigan, the Pembroke was a barnyard all star. It escorted cattle to common grazing land, watched over them, made sure they got home in time for milking, handled rodent control, guarded the farmyard, and looked after the family. Historians estimate the Pembroke's roots go back as far as the reign of Hywel Dda (HOW-el THAH), King of Wales, in the early tenth century.

So what about the stubby tail of a Pembroke Welsh Corgis? Well, this gets a little messy. Some Pembrokes are born with a naturally short tail, thanks to a dominant bobtail gene. Others are born with the longer tails, displaying the recessive gene. 

There is some unverified lore as well, but I will mention it simply because it is often repeated as part of the origin story. But I want to stress that may entirely be legend rather than fact. As the story goes, for a stretch of medieval history, peasants in parts of Britain were only allowed to keep small dogs, and working dogs like Corgis were subject to taxation, unless their tails were docked. And so, allegedly, many Pembrokes born with a long tail would have their tails docked. That law is often cited as one possible origin for why Pembrokes, and the Old English Sheepdog, have traditionally had a bobbed tail. Whether or not it’s true, well, I don’t know, but the "bobtail" trait certainly stuck, and it eventually became a defining characteristic of the breed. 

By the 1850s, you could find some version of a Corgi on nearly every farm in Wales: the Spitz-influenced, naturally bob-tailed Pembroke down south, and the long-tailed Cardigan up north. But as farming modernized, fences went up, sheep started replacing cattle in a lot of areas, and longer-legged herding dogs like the Border Collie took over the heavy lifting. The Corgi's original farm job started to disappear.

But in 1925, a group of Welsh farmers who loved these little dogs formed the Welsh Corgi Club in a local pub, hoping to preserve the breed and get it recognized. Around the same time the Kennel Club in Great Britain started exhibiting Corgis. But there was one problem. The Kennel Club didn't distinguish between Pembrokes and Cardigans. They were registered and shown as a single breed, the Welsh Corgi, which meant the two types could be, and were, interbred.

This did not go over well either in popularity or at dog shows. Pembroke people liked their dogs small, compact, and rectangular, with those short bobbed tails. Cardigan people liked their longer bodies, rounder ears, and long, bushy tails. Judges often had a preference for one or the other, and entire competitions turned into arguments about whose dog was "more correct." It was, by all accounts, a mess. Especially since the dogs only wanted treats and a belly rub. 

Finally, in 1934, the Kennel Club stepped in and made it official: Pembroke Welsh Corgis and Cardigan Welsh Corgis were declared two separate breeds. Owners had to pick a lane. And almost immediately, the Pembroke started to pull ahead in popularity, mostly because of one very famous new fan.

In 1933, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi named Rozavel Golden Eagle was acquired for Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth the Second. She later nicknamed this corgi “Dookie.” Later in 1933, the princess was given another Pembroke, this one named Jane.

In 1944 on her 18th birthday, her father King George the Sixth gifted her another Pembroke, a dog named Hickathrift Pippa, also known as Susan.

And Susan wasn't just a pet. She reportedly rode along, hidden in the carriage, during Elizabeth's wedding to Prince Philip, and even accompanied the happy couple on their honeymoon.

From Susan, Elizabeth bred many corgis over the course of her life, plus a run of dachshund-corgi crosses she nicknamed "dorgis." The dogs lived, by every account, an absurdly good life, with all the luxuries you would expect for a royal dog.

The royal connection turned the Pembroke into a full-blown cultural symbol. New puppy registrations reportedly jumped by fifty-six percent in 1944, the year young Elizabeth was given Susan. In 2021, the year before the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, Pembroke registrations hit their highest level in almost thirty years.

The Cardigan, meanwhile, never got a queen. It stayed the quieter, lesser-known cousin, and today it's actually listed by the UK Kennel Club as a "vulnerable native breed," meaning it's at real risk of disappearing in its home country. That would be a shame, honestly, not just because the Cardigan is the older breed with arguably a deeper history, but because they are just so darned adorable. Isn’t there a princess out there who can give the Cardigan Welsh Corgi a boost?

So how did these lovable dogs cross the Atlantic? In 1933, or 1934 according to some sources, an American dog breeder named Margery Roesler was visiting London and spotted a Pembroke Corgi at Paddington Station. She loved it so much she bought the dog on the spot. That dog, named Little Madam, became the first Corgi ever registered with the American Kennel Club, and went on to become the first American champion of the breed in 1935. The Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club of America was founded shortly after, in February of 1936, at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York.

Alright, let's get practical for a second, because I know some of you are sitting there going, "Rich, I still can't tell them apart at the dog park." Fair. Here's your cheat sheet.

First, the Tail, and this is the big one. Pembrokes are famously short-tailed or tailless — either born naturally bobtailed thanks to that dominant gene we talked about, or historically docked. Cardigans keep their full, long, fox-like tail. If you see a corgi with a long tail swishing around behind it, you are almost certainly looking at a Cardigan.

The ears are also different. Pembrokes tend to have smaller, more pointed ears that sit closer together. Cardigans have larger, more rounded ears, often described as looking a bit like mouse ears, set a little wider apart on the head.

Cardigans are generally a bit heavier-boned and slightly longer in body than Pembrokes, reflecting that Dachshund-family ancestry. Pembrokes tend to look a touch more refined and compact and a bit more fox-like in the face.

Their fur colors and patterns also vary. Pembrokes typically come in red, sable, fawn, or black-and-tan, usually with white markings on the legs, chest, and neck. Cardigans have a much wider color palette, including that striking marbled, grey-and-black coat you won't see on a Pembroke.

Cardigans generally run a little bigger and heavier than Pembrokes, though both breeds exhibit chondrodysplasia, meaning their short legs come from a genetic. Other dogs with this condition are Dachshund and Basset Hound. A Pembroke typically weighs somewhere around 20 to 26 pounds; Cardigans usually run a bit heavier than that.

Both breeds are famously smart, famously food-motivated, and famously not shy. But if you talk to breeders, Pembrokes are often described as slightly more outgoing and eager-to-please, while Cardigans get described as a touch more reserved with strangers, but every bit as loyal and clownish once they warm up. Neither breed, it should be said, has any idea it's only twelve inches tall. Corgis of both varieties tend to have that main-character energy.

Over the decades, corgis have had one heck of a modern glow-up, largely riding on the coattails, or should I say tail-lessness, of that royal connection.

Queen Elizabeth's corgis became so iconic they've shown up on British coins, appeared as statues, and gotten their own line of merchandise. Maybe the single most famous corgi moment in pop culture history happened at the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Summer Olympics, when the Queen appeared to parachute into the stadium alongside James Bond, played by Daniel Craig, and her real-life corgis made a cameo in the sketch leading up to it. 

The internet age has been just as kind to the corgi. Social media corgis have become full-blown celebrities in their own right. Dogs like Maxine, Ralph, Tofu, and the corgi brothers Geordi and Scotty have pulled in millions of followers between them. Corgi merch is everywhere, and the "corgi butt", that low, wide, waddling rear end, might be one of the most photographed body parts in the entire animal kingdom.

And it's not just internet fame. Corgis have made appearances across film and television for decades as the go-to breed when a story needs a dog that reads as clever, a little sassy, and instantly recognizable, largely thanks to that unmistakable silhouette: long body, tiny legs, big ears, bigger personality.

In the American Kennel Club’s 2025 popularity rankings, the Cardigan Welsh Corgi comes in at number sixty-five, and the Pembroke, number 16.

From a Welsh cattle farm a thousand years ago to a Buckingham Palace bedroom to your Instagram feed. That is one heck of a journey for a dog that, by design, was never supposed to be more than twelve inches tall.

So next time you see a corgi doing that low, torpedo-like sprint across a backyard, or flopped out on the floor in what owners affectionately call the "corgi flop," remember — you're looking at the descendant of a dog bred to outsmart cattle twenty times its size, survive rugged Welsh terrain, and eventually charm its way into a queen's inner circle. Two breeds, one incredible shared history, and not an ounce of self-awareness about how short those legs actually are.

If you would like to add a Pembroke or Cardigan Welsh corgi to your household, please visit your local SPCA, Humane Society, animal shelter, or rescue organization. There are millions of dogs and cats waiting to find their forever homes. Also, spay or neuter your pets to help reduce the homeless animal population.

Now it’s time to see which breed will be featured next on Doggone History…randomizer is fired up…and…It’s the Jack Russell Terrier!

Doggone History is written, edited, and produced by me, Rich Napolitano. Original theme music is also by me.

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