Hey Kim,
Buck's doing great, actually - he's twitching away in his sleep right behind me on the bed at the moment (what on earth could he be dreaming about?). These days, he and Laika are actually perfectly capable of sleeping in my bed together; it's just when Buck moves that Laika gets a bit nervous. She'll get there, though. They can pass each other in doorways now without incident.
We play with his Squeak a lot; he's also discovered the extraordinary Squeakiness of the frog we purchased - he's almost as fond of Squeak II as he is of Squeak I. When I go out to the park by the lake I even let him off leash - he's always great with recall and never goes too far away - what's really fun is heading out on the lake, which is of course wholly frozen - and chasing him up and down in the snow. He's much faster than I am, but we're both having a lot of fun. He's met several dogs by now, and happily sniffs away at them, though he's so far not felt inspired enough to play with any of them. He's met some of our (human) friends, too: the other night two of my good friends came over for tea and Buck was great with them! We were all sitting down in the living room and Buck happily did the rounds, wagging his tail, begging for attention. We were so proud of him. I then dropped by the same friends last night and spent some time in their house; Buck was fine in the beginning, though definitely shy about getting past the door, but got very nervous when I started putting my shoes on for us to go home...they're convinced he doesn't "like" them, but I try to explain he was like that with us (Rebecca and I) when he first met us, too...
He's not been alone too much, really: his most solitary days are Tuesdays. Mondays I'm here until the evening and Fridays I'm here all day - he really isn't alone much at all (though he's incredibly wiggly & cute when you HAVE left him alone for a bit...) J
I'M very happy I adopted him, though! Apart from the occasional, truly toxic fart ; } , he's an absolutely wonderful dog.
Thanks so much for all your help with him, and like I said, you're definitely welcome to come say hi to him if you want to.
Gabriella