A Pet for Christmas? That'll Cost You
Home for the Holidays?
When I was a child, I loved the books All Things Wise and Wonderful and All Things Bright and Beautiful. Written by Jame Herriot, an English country vet, these books captivated me. The cow giving birth on a cold winter’s nigh; the horse with a sore foot; good dog Cedric, how I loved these stories!
While I knew better than to ask for a horse (even though I really, really wanted to), I lobbied endlessly, and fruitlessly, for a dog. My mom always said no, because, she told me, she’d be the one who’d do all the work. She might also have added that she and my father would have had to pay all the bills, and, as it turns out, the cost of a dog is not nothing.
With my own daughter now lobbying heavily for a pet, I was a little taken aback by just the cost of a cat or dog. Writing in The New York Times, Paul Sullivan points out that most people underestimate the cost of an animal. He writes
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals estimates the cost for a large dog at $875 a year for food, medical expenses, toys and a few related expenses, and $560 for first-year setup costs. The estimate for a cat is $670 a year, with first-year expenses of $365, for a total of $1,035.
Over a thousand dollars for a cat? Thank goodness I’m allergic.
And if you’re thinking about a big animal, the cost of a horse starts at about $1,000, but boarding, training will run you from $9,000 to $40,000 a year, every year. And no, that wasn’t a typo.
There are cheaper ways to get a horse. Sullivan tells us that some families opt for horse shares, splitting the expenses in half or by quarters. And, I assume not every horse has to be trained. But, a horse still needs shoes, and that’s $200 every four to six weeks. Which is to say, a horse is a lavish pet and should probably only move off a wish list if the words “lavish” and “gift” together don’t make you tense.
So, if you’re considering a pet this year, horses do make the price of puppy or kitten seem reasonable. If you adopt a puppy or cat, even better, and the yearly expenses can be budgeted. But, as Sullivan suggests, be sure to save up for surprise medical expenses. (He tells of a black lab who ate a sock that had to be removed surgically, $6,000 later.) And, let’s not forget, there’s always a hermit crab.
photo credit: Oriovic
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[...] Babble (blog) [...]
As a huge animal advocate who would love to see every humane society and shelter put out of business because so many people start loving and adopting and SPAYING AND NEUTERING, I still have to say that a pet for Christmas is. a. bad. idea. SOOOOOOO many precious pups and kittens end up getting turned in come February because dumb-dumbs didn’t realize that puppies, you know, poop. And not always where you’d like them to. Or mommy didn’t realize that cats and leather furniture don’t mix and damn, that kitty litter stinks and oh my gosh you have to empty that shitcan!?!? Cute puppies also grow up and turn into drooling, stinky, 60 lb. lapdogs that don’t understand why you keep screaming “Not on the couch!”. Don’t adopt or buy animals without being ready to make the commitment and put up with them, their quirks (like their affinity for underwear), and their vet bills (like the $700 one that we had to pay when the punk kid down the street shot our cat with a pellet gun).
This sounds like pretty sound advice.