Thank you so much everyone for the well wishes. It means alot to me.

Cassie is 9 1/2 years old. I guess that is old for a pug. Pugs are not extremely healthy like most of the other toys are, therefore, they don't live as long. When I talked to a wonderful lady who breeds pugs, who used to be in one of Graham's agility classes, she told me that she has never had a pug live more then 9 years. She said that 6-8 years is typical.

Cassie is not from good bloodlines. As a matter of fact, she's a puppy mill dog. The family who bought her and had her for 7 years before realizing that dogs are not happy locked in laundry rooms for 12-14 hours per day, bought her from a flea market. A real dirty flea market that didn't know anything about the breed. They also did not have the parents and they did not seem to like dogs at all.

A brief explanation for those who don't know who Cassie is: About 2 1/2 years ago while I was on my lunch hour at work, I was standing in line at the resturaunt that is on the main floor of my building. Standing in line behind me was one of my co-workers and she was chatting with someone about this pug who needed a home, or else she was going to have to take her to the dog pound. I immediately perked up, as I LOVE pugs and I wanted a small companion for Graham and my mom.

Let me rewind a bit. At that time, Graham was living with my mom because Dan and I were unable to find any dog friendly apartments at the time. So Graham was living with "Grandma" and he was lonely for canine company (at least I thought so). I wanted him to have someone to talk to while both my mom and I were at work. I wanted a smaller dog because my mom could not handle a big dog as well as she used to be able to do. My mom and I always loved pugs and so I could not pass up the opportunity to rescue this little pug from her previous home. I asked my mom that same night if she would be interested in adopting an older pug. She thought it sounded wonderful.

So the lady who owned her for 7 years, brought her over to my moms house one day, and Cassie fit in perfectlly.

When we found an apartment that allowed dogs, we knew that we were taking Graham, but I could not have taken both dogs and left my mom with no canine friends. My mom is my best friend and, although Graham and Cassie got along fine, they never played or bonded too much, and I would not have taken both of the dogs out of my moms house. When I got Cassie, my mom immediately wanted to keep her when I took Graham. So Graham came with me and Cassie stayed with my mom. I visit her ALL the time, so I see Cassie several times during the week, and every time my mom came over to my apartment and now my house, she brings her two dogs: Ritzie the shih tzu, and Cassie the pigalett pugalett.

Phew that was a mouthful