Thanks to Penni A. for passing along this translation of the video narrative by Mair Jones Rees:
They have formed a new breed society, Cymdeithas Cwn Llathen Ceredigion, to develop a breed that once helped the Welsh drovers take cattle and other livestock to English markets.
The name of the new society – it means the Ceredigion Yard Dog Society – refers back to a reference to yard dogs, measuring one yard from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail in the 11th-century Domesday Book. Corgi means dwarf dog in Welsh.
“The main purpose is to resuscitate our native corgi breed as a working dog on farms and smallholdings,” said society secretary Raymond Osborne-Jones, who farms at Ystrad Meurig, Ceredigion.
“It’s very rare now in Wales partly because of the popularity of the Pembrokeshire corgi, which is a completely different breed. We want to revive them in their native home.”
The society chairman is Builth Wells farmer, butcher and top show judge Arwyn Morgans, who bought his first dog for half-a-crown (2s 6d or 12.5p) when he was a 10-year-old lad growing up on his parents’ Cardiganshire smallholding.
Mr Morgans said one of the reasons for establishing the new society was to break a stranglehold exerted by big commercial breeders.
“You buy a pedigree dog from them for £700 or £1,000 and they won’t let you have the registration papers – they don’t want anybody else breeding from them,” said Mr Morgans.
“Fewer than 300 were registered last year. The breed is now on the endangered register and if we don’t do something it will be extinct in 20 or 30 years.
“It’s like the Welsh sheepdog a few years ago. That was in danger of dying out but everybody got behind it and they are thriving now. We have to do the same otherwise it will have gone. We can’t depend on the big breeders – they are only in it for the money.”
Mr Morgans has a dog and two bitches which he works on his farm like any standard type of sheepdog. They are good with cattle and sheep and you can use them with almost anything – pigs, goats, ducks, geese and even chickens,” he said.
“They’re not snappy or yappy. They have a lovely temperament.
“They will work, they make lovely companions and they are good guard dogs – if there’s somebody around they will let you know.
“If there are people in Cardiganshire or elsewhere in Wales with Cardiganshire bitches we have some very good dogs between us that we will let them use for a very small fee.
“We have to increase the numbers. People have got to start breeding Cardiganshire corgis again.”
Great footage but I could only make out Corgi, TV, Domesday Book, and that's about it. I've been to Wales but never knew Welsh was spoken so much there. I thought it had gone the way of Gaelic.
I contacted the company to see if they have a clip with subtitles or a transcript.
I could make out some of it. They talked a bit about the history of the breed, then some anecdotes about local corgis, and then the man from the "Cardigan Welsh Corgi Society" talked about efforts to popularize the breed. Give me several free weeks with my Welsh dictionaries and I could probably do better!
It was interesting to learn that although the word "corgi" is thought to come from Welsh, the current Welsh word for "corgi" is "ci llathaid" ("cŵn llathen" in the plural"), which means "yard dog".