I can answer this for you Dorothy, I think. (Hope Deb doesn't mind, she's really upset about loosing Sarafina) Sarafina was about a year old, and don't really know what happened. (My DH and I rescued a number of babies from a house that had waaay too many pets and Deb and her family adopted one of the GP's.) We've had GP's that were only with us for a year and we currently have on that's been with us for 8, and a wide range of time inbetween. Sarafina was an unbreed female and they sometimes develope uterine cancer. (I talked with our vet last night deb) so that may be what happened.