A dog with hip dysplasia or severe allergies can have significantly higher veterinary expenses and I routinely see people who spend over $2,000 on a single veterinary problem. Chances are your costs will be similar to those I incur, but even with the minimum required care, it is still over $13,000.00.
What do we learn from all this? Well on the positive side we Americans love our dogs and are not afraid to spend money on them. But on the more important practical side we realize that there is no such thing as a 'free' puppy. With this huge investment it only makes sense that we are very careful about choosing a puppy. While I appreciate the benefits of a purebred breed, this highlights the importance of doing your research and getting a puppy that has parents with excellent hips, eyes, legs, disposition, and no history of skin allergies. Research the breeds and choose a breed that matches your lifestyle. Spending a $1000 on a puppy may be a shock at first but if it is healthy, intelligent and guaranteed free of defects, then it is worth every penny. Puppies that are bred for appearance and not structural soundness, intelligence, health, and disposition are a dime a dozen and will often end up costing you much more than the purchase price of a good puppy in health problems and often develop serious behavioral and disposition problems as well. Remember that hard to find breeds can cost $1000 and still be a medical nightmare. When I talk about a $1000 puppy it includes one that is free of all inherited problems including hips, eyes, skin, and legs. The parents and grandparents should be free of all medical problems and the breeder must show proof. The disposition and intelligence of both parents should also be excellent and they should be well trained. To get this kind of guarantee you are going to have to spend a lot of money and time, and in rare breeds, it will even be more, but it can be well worth it. You can pick up any Sunday paper and find a basket full of purebred puppies for $75 to $300 each. It would be very unlikely that these puppies' parents have certified hips, eyes, and elbows, or are free of allergies. The parents are often not well trained and usually the owners have never even seen the grandparents. I see these 'registered' dogs every day in my clinic and they often have hip dysplasia, skin allergies, bone problems, behavior problems, and eye problems. When you see what it costs to own a dog you will see the importance and reason why good dogs cost a lot more. Once in a while an intelligent, healthy dog emerges from the $100 section of the paper, but as a rule, you get what you pay for and ignorance is expensive
