Tuesday, June 27, 2006

The Cost of Adopting and Owning a Dog

I received a call from the family we were going to show Bella to on Thursday. The wife said that her husband was laid off today and they didn't want to adopt a dog, which I can understand. Hopefully once they get things back on track and figure out their finances they'll consider looking again.

This got me thinking about how much it costs to adopt and own a dog. Andrew and I have kept track of our finances using an Excel spreadsheet since 2001. We have things broken down into categories, one of which is "puppies". So it was easy to go back and see yearly as well as monthly expenses related to the dogs.

Before we even started looking to adopt dogs we did reseach on the start up cost of adopting. We priced crates, food, toys, vet visits for shots, getting a dog fixed, etc. We wanted to know before we adopted approximately how much it would cost to raise a dog or two. We estimated that the first year would cost around $1,000 per dog. This included vet visits, getting fixed, a crate, toys, food, collar, leash, and any other essentials we didn't have becuase this would be our first pet. In 2003 we spent $2,330 on the dogs. This includes a $200 emergency visit to the vet with Beacon shortly after we brought him home.

It definitely is worth your money to adopt from an animal rescue or shelter. And if you adopt a dog old enough to have had all of its shots it's an even better deal. We spent $475 for vaccinations and spay/neuter surgery for the dogs combined by the time they were four months old. The adoption fee for dogs in Vicky's Pet Connection (for which I volunteer) is $150, which includes spay/neuter and age appropriate vaccinations. We had to tack on an additional adoption fee for our dogs of $450 and we got a "buy one get one free" deal.

Once a dog has all of its shots, is fixed, and essential things are puchased like leashes, collars, and beds the cost of owning a dog goes down. We spend about $1,500 a year on our dogs. I'd consider this to be on the high end. Our dogs are fairly spoiled with toys and treats. We've also purchased three sets of beds over the years! Our dogs started off on somewhat cheap dog food as well. We fed them Diamond, which is a decent brand and good cost. In the past year and a half though we've upgraded though. Our yearly dog cost also includes unplanned trips to the vet for sickness and / or injury. We have two leashes, a Gentle Leader, a Halti, two car seatbelts, two kinds of slip collars, and numerous collars for each dog, which also puts our yearly cost to own a dog above the average person.

I'm thinking about writing an article about the start up cost of owning a dog to put on Vicky's webpage. I think it would be interesting for those looking to adopt to see how adopting an animal from a rescue group or shelter will save money in the long run, not to mention help with the overpopulation of unwanted pets.

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