How a corgi helped to overcome my prejudices
“She looks like a sausage made of fur, on tiny legs”
I have always been a dog person. Growing up, our family had big dogs—a Bernese mountain dog and a white German shepherd—and I felt comfortable around their calm, steady presence. So when a friend asked us to dog-sit her corgi, Jayja, I said yes without hesitation. I already knew this black-and-white bundle of energy from her previous visits to our apartment. She was lively, playful and endlessly entertaining. The day Jayja arrived, we were prepared. We had removed all of the stuff from the floor that she could possibly destroy or play with. I had arranged to work from home so I would be there, watching the dog.
“She looks like a sausage made of fur, on tiny legs,” my husband said.
What I didn’t tell my friend was about my previous experience with small dogs. Years earlier, while living in the Yukon, a friend’s small dog had bitten my hand. It wasn’t a severe bite, but the incident left me with a lingering sense that I had done something wrong. The invisible wall that grew between me and that dog never came down—I kept my distance, and our relationship forever changed. The experience had coloured my perception of all small dogs: they seemed loud, jumpy and unable to relax or keep their cool. And, also, they seemed to be used as “accessories” for stylish influencers on social media.
On Day 1 with Jayja the corgi, my husband left for work and suddenly I was alone with this furry bundle of energy. At first we played a bit (I threw a ball and she ran after it). Then I went to my office and worked, but Jayja had other plans. She was standing in the hallway and started this high-pitched whining that cut right through my concentration. At first I decided to ignore her and keep working. She would eventually stop, I thought. But that wasn’t the case. She kept whining, and so I gave in because I couldn’t stand the whining anymore. I returned to play ball with her instead of working on a report I had to finish for work.
It was a coincidence that just a few days before that I had interviewed a dog trainer for the newspaper I am working for in Switzerland. The interviewer said, “Dogs are predators.” We discussed children approaching dogs without asking. “When the dog bites them, it is often because they [the children] did not ask.” We expect dogs to sit still in restaurants, with all that noise and movement around them, she explained. Kids running past them, people reaching over to pet them. But a dog is an animal … It’s actually a predator—a wild animal. Or kids running past them. But a dog is an animal, it is actually a predator, a wild animal. I thought about her words while looking at the corgi on my rug, still full of energy. Predator? Not her, I thought. (But what did I know about corgis anyway?)
As I went for a brief walk, strangers would smile and approach us. “Hey, is that a corgi? The queen used to breed them,” one man told me. Another one pointed out that Columbo, in the famous crime show, had one too. Back home and curious, I did some research on corgis and found out that, indeed, Queen Elizabeth II had favoured them, although hers were brown. And that Columbo never owned one: his dog was a basset hound. Isn’t it funny what people associate with dogs and what they think they know about dogs?
But what I discovered was far more interesting than royal trivia. Corgis weren’t just cute companions; they were serious working dogs from Wales—bred for herding cattle. Those short legs and long bodies that made them look so adorable? They were actually perfect for nipping at cattle heels and dodging kicks. I was looking at an athlete, not an accessory.
I had always dismissed small dogs as accessories such as those of influencers on social media. Small dogs did not appear, to me, to be strong enough to survive a Yukon winter or even a winter in Switzerland. But Jayja proved me wrong. She was constantly checking on us, turning her head to make sure we were still there, sleeping on our doorstep to protect us. And those small legs … they could run with surprising speed.
After just two days with Jayja, she had completely changed my mind about small dogs. And our rug was now covered in fur.
I still don’t know why that dog in the Yukon bit me, and I probably never will. But does it really matter? After all, as the dog trainer reminded me, every dog is a predator at heart and has a wild side in them. The difference isn’t in their size—it’s in understanding and respecting what they are.
Jayja, the “corgi-sausage,” taught me that prejudice often comes from a single bad experience. Wisdom, on the other hand, comes from being open to new experiences.
