Stick with Hamsters
March 31, 2008
Not only will dogs poop all over the house if you let them, but they’re also freaking expensive. So says the New York Times:
The dog owners spent almost $2,000; cat owners about $1,200. If you want a real deal, small animals came in at just under $300. Spending can run even higher in the first year, since dogs need training, and whacking them with a newspaper is no longer an option.
When we adopted Ryder, we definitely expected the poo, the chewed slippers, and the occasional vomit in our shoes. What we didn’t expect were all the bills. Whenever Ryder broke a toe or cut a paw, she instantly evaporated most of our savings.
Because I’m anal, I’ve been keeping track of our doggy expenses since we got her. We’ve easily spent nearly $3000 for the first year, and that’s not even counting the shoes she destroyed. See this graph? — all the sharp upswings are vet bills:
And because dogs love pie, here’s a big fat pie of doggy expenses:
But while our puppy definitely broke our budget, she offers something $3000/year doesn’t — piles of poo we have to pick up and wet licks in the morning. Awesome!
Posted by Tudor at 11:25 PM in A Dog's Life | TrackBackI like how in June of 2007 your dog somehow earned you ~$10!
Posted by: Greg Smith on March 31, 2008 at 11:55 PMI guess I am lucky that my dog primarily sticks to throwing up all over my carpet. He cleans it up himself about 50% of the time, by eating it, so it’s totally cool.
I have managed to avoid any costly vet bills so far. Aside from the yearly vaccines and blood tests, I usually only see the vet every three or four months between my cat and my dog. My vet likes me, which is great because it means that she cuts me a lot of slack when it comes to bills.
I shudder to think what the expense would be if Ryder were a human baby. :)
Posted by: martin on April 01, 2008 at 07:30 AMWhy is whacking them with a newspaper no longer an option? Are newspapers obsolete? Have the dogs developed countermeasures?
Posted by: regan on April 01, 2008 at 11:06 AMRegan: you’re right — newsprint is dying. The Internets are taking over all media. Thus, wacking Fido with a digital copy of the New York Times is slightly impractical.
Martin: the key is to have 10 of them babies — then you can develop an economy of scale. This probably applies to Ryders too.
Megan: this year we’re trying to keep vet bills to a minimum by making the dog live in a bubble. Vomit is awesome!
Greg: GoogleDocs creates dramatic and highly inaccurate graphs. But yeah, we’re seriously considering getting Ryder a job.
Posted by: Tudor on April 01, 2008 at 03:48 PMIs Ryder old enough to work legally?
Posted by: zed. on April 04, 2008 at 06:26 PM