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Rufus
We celebrated Rufus' 1st birthday with a trip to a dog bakery where Rufus picked out a birthday canolli (he obviously shares my love for Italian pastries) and then to the groomer to look all handsome. I found a groomer that owns three pugs of her own and she just loves Rufus! On Father's Day weekend, we experienced our first "puggy play date" at a local county park.
I signed up for the play group through a link on Milwaukee Pug Fest's web site, and Rufus just loved it! The park that we met at has an off-leash dog park of about 3 acres of property. Rufus made an impression by inventing a new sport - ice rolling (see picture). The organizers had a kiddie pool set up for the pugs, but Rufus found a pile of discarded ice from a cooler and made himself comfortable. He was such a hit that his ice-rolling picture became the cover shot for the play-date web page. Our next play date is in two weeks. Rufus is looking forward to chasing his tennis ball and running like a flash of lightening around the park with his new puggie pals.
Rufus continues to be a very good dog. As you can see from the pictures, even our cat has come to love him. He loves to snuggle on my lap in particular, but he'll welcome anyone that will give him a good belly rub. The only thing that Rufus is struggling with is barking - at men in general, at my hubby in particular, and only at night for some reason. We begin basic obedience training on July 19 for four weeks, so hopefully we can get to the reason behind Rufus' barks.
Rufus sends his love and he wants you to know that he is healthy and very happy. We will be in touch soon!
Frank joined our family in March of 2009. We were already the proud pug-parents of a 6 year old fawn pug, but found ourselves with lap-room to spare and lots more love to give, so decided to look into adopting another pug. We immediately fell in love with Frank, a 2-time surrender with some mild issues with marking who, at 7, was in desperate need of his forever home. NIPRA were very informative and helpful, and I felt good that they were completely upfront about his marking issues and even offered tips on how to correct it. The adoption process was very straight-forward and conducted very professionally.
Once we got him home, Frank settled in very quickly. He made himself right at home wherever he could find a lap to stretch out on, and started to understand that he was a part of our family. Now it’s been a few months and his marking issues have stopped (he had been wearing a belly band prior to that which was provided by NIPRA, so the marking wasn’t actually that big of a problem, more of a nuisance), he’s gotten to a healthy weight, and we’re also seeing a huge change in his personality. He’s more active and plays with other dogs now (though he still prefers people), he totally trusts us and has even learned to allow me to touch his feet(!!), and he is happy – how can I tell? Because he walks around with a huge smile on his face!
We now can’t imagine our lives with out Frank! Thank you NIPRA for providing a great service to pugs and people everywhere.
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