One common mistake many people make when purchasing new pets is knowing exactly how much it is going to cost them to take care of their new pet. The initial thoughts are to consider the immediate cost of the dog, some food expenses, and even the cost of a few things such as collars, leashes, and toys. However many pet owners fail to realize the true total costs involved with owning their new pets.
The biggest cost to pet ownership is also the one cost that we hope to never have to pay, the cost of a major health problem for a pet. Recently one of our German Shepherds broke his left hock or rear ankle bone and started a chain of costly events.
The day started out like any other day. Taking the dogs outside for a pleasant session of chase the Frisbee. Like most days our male, Axel, would simply run after and catch the Frisbee. Unfortunately this day he decided to jump straight up and catch the Frisbee that was over his head.
It almost happened in slow motion. He twisted in midair. He caught the Frisbee. It was a spectacular catch. Then he landed extremely hard. The snap was so loud I could hear it from thirty feet away. He yelped like crazy for what seemed like an eternity. Then he actually got up and wanted to play more. But I knew immediately there was a big problem.
Within minutes he was on his way to our local veterinarian's office. The trip only took a few minutes, and he actually seemed calmer then we were. The diagnosis was a broken bone that hold the ankle in place. While that was painful for him, it was not going to be the most painful part of the experience. That came for us.
The very next day he was brought to a specialist for surgical pin placement into the bone that had cracked. That is when the true pain hit us. the cost of the procedure was anywhere between $2000 and $3000 dollars. How were we going to afford that? What other options were there? We were not even going to consider putting him down, he is our family.
So we took out a loan application at the vets office to cover the cost of the surgery and proceeded to have him start his recuperation period. Now that he was ready to go home with a nice brand new cast on his leg, we felt the worst part was over. Little did we know that his road back to good health would double the cost of his care.
Nearly ever week he started chewing on his cast. Oh how he was getting irritated to no end with that cast. He chewed on the top and the bottom eventually getting toes uncovered and putting his leg at risk of further injury. The problem for us was that each time he chewed it off, we had to have the vet put a new one back on. The cost to have this replaced each week averaged to nearly $400 each time it was replaced.
All told he chewed his cast off a total of 7 times over the course of 12 weeks. That is a cost of nearly $2800 just to keep replacing the cast. Add that to the $2100 cost of the surgery itself and various other costs and this one day playing Frisbee cost us over $5000 for one pet.
All this and he is only 1 and 1/2 years old and has many years ahead of him in which he could get hurt. As always we hope he never gets hurt, but unlike before, we will take more steps to better prepare ourselves for the costs involved to care for him in the eventuality that he does.
Derek Wood breeds and trains large breed dogs through the use of healthy and humane techniques. He is a life-long pet advocate and animal friend. Get free pet training tips by visiting: http://German-Shepherd-Obedience.com |
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