Imagine an idyllic spring day at a suburban park with newly green grass and flowers just beginning bloom. Insert into this scene a herd of photogenic corgis playfully frolicking as their owners capture the pups in action.
It’s a scene poised to go viral on social media, and that ultimately led to its downfall.
A Grayslake resident created a Facebook event inviting corgi owners to meet on April 23 at the Jaycee Dog Park in Deerfield. The event quickly spread on Facebook with thousands of respondents apparently planning to attend.
Rick Julison, executive director of the Deerfield Park District, said his organization first heard of the gathering after it surpassed 2,400 planned attendees.
“She had to cancel it,” Julison said. “She did not go through the proper procedures and so forth in asking for use of that park, but that wasn’t the major issue. The major issue was she had so much of an interest.”
Kendall Seale, listed as the event’s organizer on Facebook, did not respond to requests for comment. She announced the cancellation of the “Corgi Huddle” on its Facebook page — eliciting dozens of saddened comments — before ultimately deleting it.
Seale hosted a similar event in West Dundee in March.
“I’ve seen pictures and videos about the meet-ups in California and thought, ‘Why not have one?,'” Seale said at the March 5 event, as reported by the Elgin Courier-News.
About 30 corgis and their owners attended that event, which was also organized on Facebook.
“The park district informed me of the safety hazard,” she wrote on the now-deleted page for the planned Deerfield gathering.
When corgi breeder Kathy Brandt, of Lake Villa, heard about the failed meet-up, she envisioned a scene a bit less friendly than what would-be participants might have imagined.
“We’re looking at one massive dogfight,” Brandt said.
“Corgis are, quite honestly, German shepherds with no legs,” she said. “They are just as intense, they are smarter. If you think you’re going to get a bunch of them together, it’s not going to be a happy time.”
When Brandt heard about the idea, she was eager to explain the safety hazard. She is one of the directors of the Lakeshore Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club and owns Ruaraigh, a kennel based in Lake Villa.
She never lets more than three corgis play together at once.
“Because they fight,” Brandt said. “They’re snotty little things.”
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The breed has taken on a whole new set of admirers after photos and videos of the short and fluffy dogs have become an Internet genre all their own.
“People go crazy over them on the Internet because of the funny little things that they do, and their little butts, and their smiles,” Brandt added. “But then they get into the hands of these people who only see the cuteness.”
Julison said the dog park at 1026 Wilmot Road was only built to handle an average number of dogs for that neighborhood, not a large event.
Social events for corgis don’t appear to be commonplace in the area. Meetup.com lists no corgi-specific groups anywhere in Chicago. On Facebook, the Chicago Area Corgi Owners Group contains 623 members.
Courier-News freelance reporter Erin Sauder contributed.
Twitter: @RonnieAtPioneer