This is Kobe, I got him first. He was part of my happiness project when I was going through a very difficult divorce and my children were very sad. Since we were on our own, the children and I decided to break all of the rules and get Kobe. Kobe is a puggle. A puggle is a pug/beagle mix. The family had an English mastiff at the time. So we had Kobe and the English mastiff and shortly thereafter I started helping other people find puggles. I literally had people who loved Kobe so much that they asked me to help them find a dog like him. Of course, I was happy to oblige. I made it my mission to find puggles for my friends. It was so much fun. It was the dream job that didn't pay! I made a lot of people happy and there are a lot of Kobe look-a-likes in Summit, New Jersey where I was living at the time. This is where I grew up, got divorced and then moved to the next town over and started a new life with my boys, our English mastiff, Kobe and then of course, our next dog, Russell. Russell is a frug – a French bulldog pug. My family and I love these faces. My son has a French bulldog, we had the English mastiff, and a boxer at one time, as well. So there is definitely a pattern here.

After my boys graduated from college, I decided to leave NJ for good. I thought about living in Mexico, or possibly Nantucket. I decided I wanted to live somewhere beachy - possibly somewhere there might even be a resort where I could teach yoga. (I had become a serious yoga student during my divorce and ended up obtaining my license.) I envisioned life with the dogs, yoga, painting and the beach.

Little did I know that I would end up in Middleburg. My visions of the beach started fading quickly when a friend of mine – whom I had known since 5th grade – suggested that I come down to Virginia since I had family in the area and one of my sons was living locally. I came for a visit and my friend, the dogs and I took a ride to Middleburg. I had been through Middleburg a time or two in the past – once with my ex-husband and another time for Gold Cup. We were driving through town and my friend saw a for rent sign. I called the number and Jock Reuter came right over and showed us the apartment in town where I ended up living. I really fell in love with Middleburg because there were dogs everywhere. I went into the restaurants – the dogs were there. When I brought my dogs in the restaurant the staff would cater to my dogs more than me. I had never seen that before and I knew I was home! I thought this is everything that Nantucket is except that it doesn't have the ocean. This is what I felt. I knew I had to be here. So here I am – with my dogs – painting and teaching yoga!