The cost of living... with a canine companion

April 22, 2024 5:11 AM

Dog companions: what's your monthly budget and cost breakdown for taking care of your furry friend?

I am once again mulling the notion of adopting a doggo. (Foster first, of course.) But my budget isn't what it was in my tech job years so I need to be sensible about costs.

What does your monthly doggo-care budget look like? Assume a single, medium-sized, reasonably healthy dog that is not a Problem Breed in terms of healthcare.

I'm thinking items like:

* Food (and what kind of food? Kibble? Canned? Raw diet?)
* Vet bills / insurance
* Toys / chews
* Training (mostly an upfront cost, I'd imagine, especially for us who are new to dog stewardship)
* Lodging, in case I am going out of town and can't feasibly take doggo with me
* Licensing
* .... what else....?

I don't care where you live :-) I'll do a bit of a conversion myself, God willing, if you live in the US for example.

posted by rabia.elizabeth to Pets & Animals (12 answers total)

All of my dog owner friends use doggy daycare or a dogwalker service, some regularly, and some on a more ad hoc basis. You may want to think about whether that would be a useful thing to budget for, depending on your daily routine, work schedule etc.
posted by unicorn chaser at 5:37 AM on April 22

Best answer: Here’s what I pay in the midwest:

Standard:
$20/year for dog license
$30/month for dog food (iams for 40 pound dog)
$120/year for standard vet visit (varies based on vaccines)
$10/2 months for waste bags

Specific:
$40 every 4-6 weeks for medication (all for anxiety/behavioral reasons)
$20 every few months for nail trims (again due to anxiety I get these done at the vet)
$5-10 for treats/month (for medication)
$800 for behavioral training (see above)
Extra vet visits to address medications

Sporadic Expenses:
$120 for collars/leashes/harnesses
$20 every so often for enzyme spray for accidents
$10 for food/water dishes
$50 for adult cage, $30 for first cage (she grew larger than expectations)
$300 for one medical procedure, otherwise physically healthy so far

Expenses I don’t Have:
Lodging (but runs around $25/day around here)
Toys (she’s uninterested)
Grooming
Doggy daycare (she’s not a fan of most dogs)
posted by Aranquis at 5:50 AM on April 22 [2 favorites]

Best answer: We just hit one year with our 25 lb rescue mutt, these are our expenses so far:
$800 or so for vet care per year (one $450 annual visit, flea and heartworm meds, plus budgeting for a visit here or there outside of the annual visit)
$250 annually for pet insurance
$600ish annually for dry kibble, chews, treats
$200ish annually for toys and leashes, poop bags, etc (was more expensive at first, obviously)
$2000ish annually for vet behaviorist and trainer for some serious behavioral issues that cropped up around month three of ownership. Obviously you might not pay this much for training but good to remember that it's a possibility. Hopefully this won't be needed forever.
She can't really be boarded yet (see above re: behavioral issues, but we'll probably pay $60-70/night for that when we get her to that point. Could probably pay $40 if she wasn't such a delicate flower :)

Our last dog, a 17-lb middle aged chihuahua, was a lot cheaper. No pet insurance because he was already older when we got him. No training/behavioral support. Built in boarding with a family member. Not as destructive with toys, ate less.
posted by ambulanceambiance at 6:07 AM on April 22 [2 favorites]

Best answer: My dog Shakedown eats human-grade raw food, which costs approx $120 - 150 a month (Canadian $), depending on flavor (beef, fish, etc.).

Tick medication, which I import from New Zealand as it's a third of the price: $20 per pill (given monthly during warm months).

Treats: $50 per year.

I only bring my dog to the vet when needed, but a basic visit is $120 not counting any additional things that need to be done. She's only been once since 2019 and total cost was $250.

I also just had her teeth cleaned for the first time (she's approx 13) and it was $200.

She also gets shaved once a year which is $120.

My dog doesn't care about toys unless they're living squirrels and those are free.

Poop bags are about 3 cents each. Leash was $15. Leather collar was $40. Airtag was $30. License is $25 annually. Tag with phone number from SmashPaw was $30.

I did training myself using a $5 clicker.

Furminator was $50. Nail clipper was $25 I think, but I've only used it once as we walk a lot on cement and she gets them clipped at her annual shaving.

She uses this water bowl on this stand, which cost about $40 each (I got them free from Amazon Vine) and generic ceramic bowl for her food. She eats it immediately and the bowl is removed (so I only need one stand). Filters for water bowl are $2 per month.

She has a Casper bed, which was expensive at $250 but it's fantastic. She mostly sleeps on the $4000 couch though, but I won't count that as a dog expense.

I'm in Toronto and work from home so have no dog walker or daycare expenses.
posted by dobbs at 6:39 AM on April 22 [2 favorites]

I've got some doodle-types, low allergy no-shed. They need substantial grooming. If you don't brush them out daily their undercoats will get matted and painful. Brushing and drying the hair after a bath is also a trained skill. In either case they need haircuts on a regular basis. I spend around $150/dog every 6 weeks on a wash/brush/dry cycle.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:47 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Best answer: 7yo 20-lb dog

Routine expenses:

-$600/year pet insurance (80/20 with $500 deductible). If not for the insurance I would have paid over $15,000 in vet bills over the last six months. I would never have a dog without insurance these days.
-$65/month prescription food
-$100/year for chews
-$100/year for the good shampoo and conditioner

I already have all the dog infrastructure from previous dogs—car crate, house crate, travel crate, ex-pens, toys, beds, harnesses, leashes, bowls, scissors, Dremel for nails, brushes, etc. All of this is probably about $2000-$3000 (I have nice gear though). I do my own grooming and training. Sometimes I do special classes like nosework and that’s extra.
posted by HotToddy at 7:03 AM on April 22

Best answer: We have not just one but two senior dogs, which are both cost multipliers. We live in an east cost US city of about 500k people.

$80/month: Homemade food (sanctioned by veterinary nutritionists)
$20/month: Infrequent treats and/or toys
$35/year: Membership to gated dog park
$200 one-time cost: Lifetime city licenses for both dogs
~$600 one-time cost: Four beds, bowls, car accessories (but honestly this is probably 2-3x in their lifetime)
$300/year: General recurring supplies (poop bags, grooming supplies, non-prescription old dog supplements, a new collar or leash if one breaks once in a blue moon etc)
$200/month average: Ordinary veterinary care for two healthy senior dogs, including vaccinations, annual heartworm test, annual exams plus bloodwork, monthly preventive meds for heartworm/fleas/ticks, and 1-2 visits per year for something moderately wrong like "hey, what is this lump I just found?" or "she seems to have broken her toe"
~$150 per dog per occasion: obedience training
$100/night for every night boarded at a kennel OR $50-$75/night for in-home dog sitting per night
$160/month: The extra time per month we pay cleaners because dog fur (without dogs we'd do monthly cleaning)
$40/month average: occasional paid dog walks for times we are out for the whole day
$40/month: daily prescription medication for old dog arthritis
$200/month average additional for teeth cleaning and surgical removal, which is hideously expensive BRUSH YOUR DOG'S TEETH, DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKES I HAVE MADE
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 7:11 AM on April 22

Best answer: My little guy (now 6) is on the high end. I give these numbers not to suggest that you are likely to experience this degree of expense and thus discourage you, but so that you can get an idea of what it might cost if your buddy has serious, but not quite catastrophic, chronic physical and mental problems to manage in a big city:

* ~$12/yr. for a license
* ~$15/mo. for a good-quality kibble
* ~$30/mo. for treats (this is way high for a being who would happily eat trash off the ground, but I remember the terrible melamine-contamination scandal and I would probably jump off a building if I gave him a special treat and it killed him, so I buy only made-in-US)
* ~$40/mo. for health insurance (which so far each year has broken even or better, but you should understand it primarily as protection against catastrophe on which you will lose money in good years)
* ~$100/mo. for bath/deshed/nails/teeth at the groomer (for a normal dog, most of this can be done yourself at home)
* ~$25/mo. for heartworm (oral) and flea and tick (topical) preventatives
* ~$30/mo. for thyroid and behavioral meds
* ~$10/mo. for pill pockets to smuggle above meds into his diet
* ~$40/mo. for home (but prescribed) preventative treatment for ear infections
* ~$150/yr. for vaccines/yearly heartworm test (bordetella semi-annually/leptospirosis annually/every 3 yrs. rabies + distemper)
* ~$3/mo. for poop bags (you can go cheaper on the bags than I do, but also my dog mostly toilets indoors, leading to...)
* ~$25/mo. for good-quality carbon pee pads (for a semi-housebound dog, should not be necessary for a healthy dog prior to late senior years)
* ~$40/yr. for Nature's Miracle (he mostly goes on the pads but he's not perfect)
* $300/yr. for regular vet costs (exam + administration of relevant vaccines), plus another $300/yr. or so for treatment of recurring ear infections at regular vet
* $1200/yr. for veterinary dermatologist (I am really hoping we will eventually resolve his issues or determine that modern veterinary science currently has no solution so this will not be a permanently recurring feature of the budget, but right now this is where we are)
* ~$4000/yr. for intensive drop-off training at a local facility to address behavioral issues (for a normal dog, you won't need anything more than a regular training course once, but if serious problems appear, you could spend huge amounts [I could easily spend more on this without thinking it was wasteful]; if I couldn't afford this at all, we just wouldn't do it and our quality of life would be less, but if you have an aggressive dog, it becomes less "optional")
* ~$300/yr. for airline fees for longer trips
* ~$600/yr. for dogsitter for shorter trips

Fixed/startup/not regularly recurring costs:

* $75 for a good-quality crate
* 2 $50 beds and one $90 bed (depending on your setup at home, you can probably get by with just the former, or even just 1 $50 bed if he doesn't sleep in his crate or during the day sleeps only on human furniture)
* $25 leash
* $25 collar
* $45 harness (these three don't have to be terribly expensive but you may find yourself trying a few different ones as you're figuring out what works for you two)
* $40 for two bowls + a silicon tray for them to sit on (to corral spills)
* $40 AirTag + sleeve to put it on his collar
* $75 engraved ID tag (I got a nice one; you can go far cheaper, like $15)
* $40 for a couple of pee pad silicon trays (not needed if you don't use pee pads, and ideally you could get away with just one if you do, but we can't)
* $30 for a couple of binkies (I am insane and have like 8 of his favorite, but one blanket for his crate and one for the couch/other bed is fine)

Common expenses we don't have:

* Toys (for a while he liked to play with these little amigurumis, about $12 a pop and lasting about two months, but he seems less into them now)
* Dog walker (I am partially WFH, plus he mostly toilets indoors; good pee pads aren't cheap but they're significantly cheaper than a walker)
* Doggie daycare (he is too shy to flourish in an environment like that)

So...this is a lot! But as I hope I've made clear, many of these are costs that a normal healthy dog will not have. Even if your dog has issues, they probably won't have both chronic physical health issues that require specialist vet visits + regular medication and other supportive treatment and serious mental health issues that benefit from sustained attention from an experienced trainer. But you asked. Back when I was earning around $110K/yr. in NYC, it was very frustrating to think that I couldn't afford a dog, but I was not wrong.
posted by praemunire at 7:52 AM on April 22

Response by poster: @ImproviseOrDie: I Memailed you a question.

I'm actually feeling a bit more optimstic about being able to meet the costs! I'll be waiting a few months to see how this year's expense burn rate goes, but round about November I'll revisit, Insha Allah.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 8:01 AM on April 22 [4 favorites]

I’m not going to fully outline our budget, as we spend wayyyy more than is average (or probably reasonable) on our two dogs, one of whom is a “super-senior”. I tend to tell people we’re “dual income, no kids, two dogs” to explain our lifestyle. But I did want to comment to say we spend about $1000-$1200 a year on dental cleanings and extractions, per dog. If you are considering a small dog (we have rat terrier mixes) know that they will have teeth problems that larger dogs don’t have. It’s just a fact of life. And it will require nearly annual cleanings, starting a few years in to adulthood. This was unexpected with our first small dog, as I grew up with medium breeds who never required dental cleanings or even brushing their teeth, just eating chews was enough. YMMV.
posted by bluloo at 1:31 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Baby and young dogs chew anything they can get their mouths on, bitter cherry spray helps a bit, but there's a cost for shoes and maybe furniture. Budget for training, it's an excellent investment. We finally found a more affordable vet, who I like better, too, so be willing to ask around. I have gotten and given crates on Buy Nothing and Craigslist; they are easy to sanitize. If you can find an unwanted chair cushion, it's a great dog bed. I, too, bought her *all* the chew toys to ignore. Chew treats still popular. My dog is very food-driven, so treats make up part of her diet and clearly make her happier. You can engrave a tag at Walmart, and you should, escape is not uncommon, is unnerving, and if your number is on the tag, you'll get your pup home much faster. Nature's Miracle is for pee accidents; if your pup can smell old pee, they may mark it again.

Incredibly worthwhile investment.
posted by theora55 at 2:05 PM on April 22

My wife and I had a dog for ten years, and what was funny about the finances was that while the breakdown of costs changed dramatically over the course of her life, it still worked out to about $600 - $700 per month the whole time she was with us.

Early on you've got a bunch of one-time purchases, frequent vet visits, trainers. Once she was out of the puppy stage but not yet super independent she went through a period of going to doggy daycare a lot of days while we were at work. Toward the end of her life she needed a lot of vet care again, and medication, but we had insurance that kept those costs from spiraling. Sometimes she traveled with us, sometimes we would hire a dog sitter while we traveled. Sometimes she ate bog-standard kibble, sometimes she ate more expensive food on vet advice. But with all those varying costs, it all seemed to balance out - each of those ten years ended up being about as expensive as any other.

Obviously there's a lot of variation between dogs and between humans - but as someone who's ready to start planning to bring a new dog friend into the household, I'm going to start from an assumption that the costs will continue to be in about that range.

Good luck! Dogs are wonderful. (And yes, eponysterical. I would say that, wouldn't I.)
posted by canisbonusest at 3:32 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]