I have a little doggie that I simply adore.
Her name is Cassie, an 8 pound Papillion, an ancient breed that was once favored by European Royalty.
In fact, they can be seen in several paintings of Royal families.
The strange thing about Cassie, however, is that she is definitely NOT a lap dog. She will come up on the couch for
Only a few minutes, then ask to get back down to the floor. Maybe her only flaw.
Well, she does have another issue; she LOVES to Bark!
She is always on guard at our home, and lets us know immediately if something unusual is going on,
Or even if she THINKS something is going on.
Since she’s now 15 it’s probably aggravated by her senility; after all that’s 105 (in dog years).
So she doesn’t hear or see very well, and probably is hallucinating.
Her greatest passion is (or was) HIKING. When we started hiking several years ago, we left her at home.
But one day on the trail we saw a Chihuahua, we asked the owners and they said she was a great hiker.
So we thought “Why not Cassie?” And she absolutely LOVED it.
She’s pretty smart, so when we take our packs out the night before, she starts getting excited.
In fact, she always sleeps right next to the packs, so she doesn’t miss any chance to hike.
In the mornings when we hike, she won’t even eat her breakfast.
She’s either too excited or afraid she’ll miss out on a hike.
Lately, however she has developed some serious health problems, name pulmonary hypertension.
We took her to the CSU Vet School clinic, they did a very thorough (and expensive) evaluation, and
prescribed treatment.
Guess what medicine she has been prescribed?
VIAGRA—Yes, you read it right Viagra (generic) is the best drug to treat this condition.
They also told us not to expect her to live more than a few months.
But here we are over a year later, and she’s doing OK.
We continued to hike, but every time she saw the packs out she seemed to get excited,
And continued to sleep next to them hoping we would take her, but we didn’t want to stress her further.
Recently, however she started running all over the yard, we decided to take her on a hike.
She was able to keep up for a little while, seemed to enjoy it, but we had to carry her most of the way back.
We will definitely continue to hike, but was that Cassie’s last hike?
