Thanks guys, for letting me talk out this thing out about the dog. I know it is not really about veggie gardening, but it is sort of. I go out to garden and he helps me. He knows that I am the one that goes out all the time, which is why he can't understand when I don't do out with him. Your comments helped too. Typing out the progress we have made with him, and with you guy's encouragement, I am being more assertive with EIN. I am being more consistent too. I know I can't let one thing go or it is back to square one with him. I think that is what happened. I was making great progress with him, then I got a bit tired and depressed, probably due to lack of sleep. I got lax with him and he took the leadership role since I was not taking it. Being leader is out of character for me. The worse problem, I am working on every time we go outside. I make him lay down and stop jumping all over the door when it is time to go out. I probably don't wait long enough because, once I open the door, I have to make him lay down again before I open the screen door. Then we go through he door. I hate this part. He turns around and wants to herd me outside. Gee whiz, I am coming out, just be patient. I point my finger at him and sternly say no. He moves away from the door. Once outside, he comes back over to me. I say go and point away from me. Or say, no herd, or no! I end up making him lay down and say settle! For settle down. The most effective thing is making him lay down. He does not bark and act like a nut when he is on the ground. He can't seem to calm down when on his feet. He definitely has very strong herding instincts. He did the minute we brought him home. I read that if you bring a puppy home much after 8 weeks it is harder to break them out of the role they played in the litter. Either, leader, or submissive or some place in between. He was 4 months old when he joined the family. He was the last pup of the litter. He might have been acting bossy, which is why he was the last to go. No matter, he is what he is. He gives the cat a hard time when she wants to go outside. I make the dog lay down, say stay. I call the cat over and let her out. This works, just have to keep it up. The dog would so love to play with the cat, but the cat hates him and hisses at him at every opportunity. Sometimes, the cat starts hissing with no reason, so I scold her instead. He is still not good at come, but he will come better than he once did. When we are stern with the word come, he will mosey on inside (most of the time). I have been not letting him lay at my feet. I think it is cute and love to have his furriness, next to my bare feet, but if I let him do that, he thinks he is leader, then I will have problems with him later. Right now, he is a bit confused why I am suddenly making him not lay there. He always has before. He is a very quick learner. I just have to be more consistent and more firm. He thinks he is my dog. He follows me around and comes right up to me when my husband lets him out. When my husband lets him in, the first thing he does is finds me and touches me with his nose. I am sure this means something, just not sure what. It is probably a bad thing in dog language. I need to get a book on dog behavior to be able to read him better. We had a book like that for cats, and it was neat to know why the cats did what they did. The dog is only 2. Adolescence has been a big problem. We were doing quite well, then he hit 6 months. He got more corgi like. He definitely thought he was the boss. We had to get even more stern with him. Yes, he is fixed. I think that helped somewhat. I read they are teenagers till three. So we have about 6 more months to go till he is an adult dog. If someone would ask me if they should get I corgi. I would say no. They are cute as buttons, very friendly, and smart, too smart. But they do test your patience and take constant attention to discipline. I would not get one if you work all day. They are not the type that likes long periods alone. They are definitely people dogs. They have way too much energy to be cooped up in the house all day. If you life in an apartment, this would not be a good choice for a dog. The love to run. They have to run off their energy. I read, that this kind of dog is not really meant to be a pet. They are working dogs. If you have one, they say they need a job. They need to herd or you need to take them to agility training. We have to get him special food since he has a sensitive stomach. We have to be very careful what scraps we feed him. He can't digest fat at all. He can't deal with wheat. I think pure bred dogs just have more physical problems due to having many common ancestors. I read with corgis becoming more popular that they are having problems with poor breeders, breeding them with close relatives. His knees are knocked due to being so dang short. I thought he needed to go to to the vet, but all the pictures I see of corgis have that same problem. All that being said, I will miss Ein after my kid takes him to live with her. I think he will miss me too. He only sees my daughter about 10 minutes a day when she graces us with her presence. I know this is not a dog forum, so thanks for your patience with my silly post. Sometimes when I want peace when I garden, I make him stay inside. I think that is a big part of the problem with him. I want to enjoy my gardening without saying no, lay down, quiet, so I just ignored his behavior. So, I guess he thought i it OK. thanks nc-crn for the vote of confidence. I know I am not a perfect dog trainer, but I am trying. flor_uk - I will read the link. It is obvious that my kid did not research this dog before getting him. Anyone in Texas should not by choice ever get a dog with long think fur especially double coats like he has. When I am comfortable he is hot. When I am hot he, is miserable. When I am sweating up a storm, it is just too dangerous to let him outside, for much loner than to do what he needs to do. Even when he is hot, he rarely volunteers to want to come inside. I have to go get him for his own good. He is a happy dog in January. I think the heat makes his behaviors worse. I know it is time for him to go in by the pitch of his barks.

I agree with what has been said already. One thing that has helped me a lot is that I would measure my house against my friends' houses and would forget that they cleaned like demons before having guests over, just like I do. I just assumed everyone's houses looked like that normally and mine was the odd one with the daily clutter. Another thing which is very important to me, is to housetrain our sons so that they go out into the world as functioning adults. I do not want my future daughters-in-law to curse me every time our sons leave a mess. My husband and his brother were not taught to clean up for themselves and had a martyr of a mother who wanted them to live home until at least 60 (yet somehow give her grandchildren). It has been a great source of friction in my house and my brother and sister in law once actually separated because of his throwing his laundry on the floor instead of the laundry basket (the fight was actually about his disrespecting her by doing that and his resentment that he worked several jobs while she spent money like crazy, but the laundry thing did not help the situation). It is a recurring "disagreement" in our house about dh's pitching in more. I had a very neat mother who was very strict about keeping the house neat at all times and I was neat as a young child naturally. Therefore, I rebelled and have battled clutter since I got older. I work on it all the time and find that I am great at organizing an area only to let things slide back over time. We are renovating/extending in the coming days and I hope to have figured out better storage in the new plan and also have made it clear to my darling sons and husband that there will be little tolerance for stuff all over the place. I have been working hard on not allowing the messes to take over and will continue to do so. One son in particular walks in the house and it is like he exploded. Both kids are usually almost naked within minutes of getting home (and we live in NY with cold winters, lol). We have started a system when they have to earn "screen time" (i.e. tv, computer, DS, Wii, etc...). They have a chance to earn 20 minutes each for "neatness", "listening to mom and dad" and "being nice to my brother". They get "graded" 3 times a day, a.m., afterschool/afternoon, & night (after dinner). There is a chance of earning 3 hours a day that way, but they usually get much less. If they get every 20 minute block earned in a day we call that a slam dunk and they are allowed something special for that (i.e. choosing what games we play, having a friend for a playdate, going to a movie, etc...). I also will never allow a playdate if their room and stuff are not cleaned up. They know that if it is all straightened up, they can almost always have friends over. They are funny in that they say they won't show the friend their room, as if that is why the rule is there. I make it clear that it does not matter as no one comes over unless they have cleaned up. It is the old carrot on a stick trick ;) BTW - we got a roomba last month, and he helps keep stuff up off the floor as he has "eaten" a few small things. He is the world's greatest pet as he cleans up after us instead of making a mess, lol.

Oakley, there is nothing to do but get indoors. Sometimes the storms are accompanied by lightening and thunder. They call them "haboobs" here. They happen quite often in the summer, often while I am at work. The sky gets dark and it gets very windy. That pic I took from my yard. I am so sorry about your Dyson! It really gets the dust up amazingly. Which one did you get? I am thinking of getting a new cordless. Mine is one of the earlier ones. It works great but isn't very good at getting bird seed up, so I have to sweep first. It is really good at dust, hair, bird fluff. I am hoping the newer model will be better.

Our friend’s son’s wedding was planned for October 2020, they had booked at a beautiful venue. Of course, As arcy_gw mentioned they had a very difficult time getting back their deposit. When the venue reopened the couple tried to reschedule,. The original booking was for a Saturday afternnoon/evening event, once the venue started working with the couple to reschedule, the venue had no available Saturday nights for over a year. The venue coordinator tried to to get the couple to take a Sunday, not what the couple wanted at all. Apparently the venue had been adding in new bookings but not rescheduling the cancelled events. After a couple of months of back and forth the couple couple’s large deposit was returned. The couple were able to book a beautiful venue that had just opened, for a Saturday night October 2022. The venue was fabulous, but they had to spend twice as much for this location, so that was a big hit financially. Thankfully, all of the other vendors worked with them, no deposits lost. The couple did have a small wedding for immediate family in October 2020, at the groom’s parents home. No vendors involved. We were not directly impacted, although I do beleive it changed the end result of my daughter’s wedding. I do understand that the issues related to her wedding are nothing compared to those who had already booked dates. My daughter’s engagment was delayed: her fiance had already asked for our blessing, he planned to pop the question during a trip to Sedona, booked for April 2020. The actual proposal happened in Sedona in March of 2021. Wedding dress shopping in 2021 was still difficult, no Saturdays appointments for a couple of months out, so my daughter took time off work to go during the week. The large bridal salon limited the appointments to 2 brides at a time, and a max of 2 people with the bride. My daughter did not plan on a large entourage but she had wanted to bring her aunt who does not have any daughters, along with the moms. Vendors were much more difficult to book, and venues were basically unavailable on a weekend for up to 2 years,. The end result was a lovely wedding for immediate family only, at our home the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 2022. The small at-home wedding was a complete blessing when we had to move the date at the last minute due to the groom’s father falling and fracturing his skull 3 days before the original date, a Saturday in October 2022. 5 months later they had a larger casual party at a brewery to celebrate with extended family and friends. Everyone is happy with the outcome but I do feel bad that they had so few options. I feel worse for my son who graduated college 2020 and never had a graduation ceremony.