As I type this, we are two days shy of the four year anniversary for when I bought home Frank and Beans. It was so hot and humid. Their previous owner gave them to us wearing collars, so we had to stop to buy harnesses (I knew collars were unsafe for pugs). Ryan ran into the store for less than 5 minutes while I stayed in the car (With A/c on) with the pugs, but they were panting so heavily in that time. I felt so guilty!

Pugs waiting with me in the car on our way to a mother’s day event this year (2017).

We were told they were 8 and 9, though the owner couldn’t recall their birth months. So, I just use their anniversary date as their birthday estimate. They are 12 and 13 now. I’m always thankful to make this day with both of them each year. I remember being a little surprised how many people made polite, but still somewhat hurtful comments about how it was odd to adopt “old” dogs. My dad has no verbal filter, so he just spilled it out “You get old dogs? What if they die a year from now?”

Of course, we did know that was a possibility – though it always is. I knew that pugs had a life expectancy of about 12-15 years. So now both of our dogs are in that range, which is hard. But I’m so thankful that we’ve gotten four years with them already. Frank had a mast cell tumor removed about two years ago. Beans vision is poor, and Frank’s hearing is poor as well. Beans can’t jump up onto furniture anymore. They both sometimes wake up “stiff”, walking without putting much pressure on a joint for the first few minutes until it “wakes up”. Beans needs to stay on hormone medication to prevent urine accidents. Beans’ face is almost pure white now.

There is no denying that they are old, but they still seem happy, and their quality of life is still good. They  both still will get playful and enjoy playing tug or wrestling about for a few minutes. Thanks to being strict with their food intake they are at their lowest weights since we got them. They had visibly lost a lot from the time they arrived until we got them into the vet for the first time (a couple months in). But at that time they weighed 30 and 32 pounds! Now Beans is about 24-25, and Frank is 26-27. This is still overweight based on their breed they should both be about four pounds lighter at least. But they have visible waists when viewed from above which seems strange. They have a lot of excess skin so they still look rather overweight in most pictures if they are sitting or lying. Beans has a TON of extra skin (i can grab two handfuls at once and it’s still not taught against her body) so she tends to look more obese in photos than Frank, despite her weighing less.

I love these two silly little dogs. I’m so glad I decided to give it a try four years ago.