Our lives with Buckwheat and Annabelle just keep getting better. The pugs, and our poodle, Vegas, are loving life! Although winter has somewhat shortened the play time outside, they are having lots of fun playing indoor games. One of the favorites? Find the kids! The children take a dog treat and hide somewhere in the house. They call the dogs once and see who finds them first. Sometimes it takes a few extra "kid yells" to get the pets in the correct part of the house, but the dogs love hunting out the kids...and the treats.

CJ has also set up a "dog training" area in our basement. Each dog gets individual attention on the treadmill (yes, they actually will walk on it!) and a home-made obstacle course consisting of Kleenex boxes, toy horse jumps, and piled up stuffed animals. In addition to "dog school, Jacob and CJ take great care to brush the dogs' teeth and clean out their wrinkles weekly. We have also found that both pugs love bath time. Annabelle eats it up and preens afterward as we blow her dry. Buckwheat enjoys the water time, but could care less about being blown dry. He prefers the towel. Needless to say, the dogs are in heaven with all of the attention.

Buckwheat and Annabelle look fabulous! They both have lost some weight and Annabelle doesn't breathe quite so "heavy" anymore after exercise and excitement. They have each claimed an end on the sofa and can often be found perched on a pillow waiting for the kids to play.

The pugs are also turning out to be quite famous in our area. CJ entered a PTA "I can make a difference by...." Reflections contest. She chose "rescuing animals" as her topic and entered under the video documentary section. She won first in her school and district. Now her video is headed to the KY State PTA Reflections Competition! One section of her video focused on Buckwheat & Annabelle. She interviewed her brother and talked about how important it is to take care of our animal friends.

That's it for now!

Noelle Grimes