With a name like Paddy O'Pembroke you might expect a dog to be an Irish Setter but no, Paddy is a Pembroke Corgi. He belongs to Dolly Vinal and she got him six years ago from Trengate Kennels in Lacey Washington.

Vinal said that the breeder is a vet who raised Corgis and Paddy is her second one.

She said he's well fed and it's good stuff. It's "very expensive raw food and I think I spend as much on him a month as I do on myself. Good thing he's a small dog."

Paddy will eat "anything and all" for snacks but as a rule he gets and enjoys apples, bananas, beans, grapes and cucumbers. But it's a controlled diet too. "I think if you did self feeding with this dog, he'd explode."

"One of the things that's most impressive to me about him is that he's really an athlete for his size. He can jump up about four feet. He jumps into the back of my Element (Honda) when the tailgate is up. That's pretty high. They call them big dogs in small packages."

He's also a swimmer Vinal explained. "I take him up into Canada and he'll jump right off the bow of the boat with a yellow lab and he paddles. Plus he loves to be out on the rocks. He's a mountain goat when we go up to Montana. He's amazingly tough. There's not much that this little dog won't do. He was even forging icy rivers in Sun Valley."

Vinal said that Paddy is, "A lover and the friendliest dog you could ever have."

A combination of his intrepid nature, his small stature and curiosity got him in trouble a while back though. "I left town for a few days," said Vinal, "and the house sitter was gone quite a bit and he just decided he'd visit the neighbors so I think he went underneath the fence and carved a hole in his head. It hasn't bothered him one bit. Plus he's very fond of the neighbor."

Paddy isn't afraid to demonstrate what he wants. "When he gets thirsty he goes to his water dish, which is a heavy ceramic one, puts his foot in it and drags it over to the sink and tells me he needs water in his bowl."

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