The Addison Cafe

I continually run into people who want to get a dog but don’t know the best place to look. They usually have no concept of how much it will cost either. Most people are shocked when they find out they can get a great pet for the price of an iPod Touch. Here’s the scoop:

1.  Check out http://www.puppyfinder.com for new and used dogs (ha).

2.  Adopting a pet usually saves a ton in medical bills since most of the time they come with shots and are fixed.

3.  Mutts are often times healthier than pure breeds, and thus cost less to purchase and keep.

4.  A dog usually lasts a lot longer than an iPod (hopefully).

5.  If you’re wondering about the cost of pet maintenance…how much do you spend on iTunes a month?

6.  iPods don’t greet you when you get home (maybe in a couple of years…)

Dogs (or any pet for that matter) are a lot of responsibility, something that is often overlooked in the excitement of trying to find one, but they sure make a great present and might not cost as much as you think… 

So I have written before about pets, specifically about dogs and the costs associated with them. However, this past week I went to a friend’s birthday party and I realized I have been narrow-minded when it comes to pets; it is not just a dog or cat world. I realized this when he pulled out his two pet tarantulas (see picture for glimpse of the bigger one).

I have several friends who, in the past year, have tried to own a dog or cat and only lasted a week or so before giving the animal back to the breeder or selling it. Even if you can afford it or think you want one, bigger pets aren’t for everybody. There are other options when it comes to owning a pet that might be a better fit for some people like a spider, ferret, gerbil, or if you’re really cheap, try a pet rock.

Turns out the tarantula I am holding in the pic (whose name is “Hermhorn” btw) only cost $20. Even better, it (“it” because I have no idea if Hermhorn is male or female) only eats one 10 cent cricket a week, for a total cost of $5.60 a year, after purchase. Hard to beat.

Benefits of owning a pet spider the size of a saucer:

1. It’s inexpensive
2. It freaks people out
3. Uh….

So when it comes to pets, do whatever floats your boat. Just don’t expect everyone to be as enthused as you are.

Red, white, and blue. Those were the colors of my dog Shinobi’s Halloween costume this year (no, I am not going to talk about politics, there is enough of that on other blogs). He was a pirate and did a good job of stealing any loot (candy) that we accidentally dropped on the ground.

The pirate outfit, it turns out, foreshadowed a surgery appointment which he is at right now as I write this. In the last several months, his kneecap would occasionally slide out of place while he was playing or walking around, forcing him to carry that leg off the ground and hobble around like a little tripod until we could pop it back into place (tons of fun btw). I am sure he would look pretty cool with a hook or pegleg, and even though it was highly unlikely that something as drastic as losing a leg would happen, we were naturally a little fearful about what was wrong (plus we don’t have the money to get him a parrot).

Turns out it is a pretty common problem for dogs, called “Luxating Patella”. The recommended surgery costs around 2k.  I would recommend asking vet schools to perform surgery for your pets, thinking it would be cheaper since students are performing it, but after calling a handful of schools it turns out it is the same price or more in some cases. Stick with a good vet. Earlier this year I wrote about pet insurance and the conclusion of the post and the comments that followed was that it can be a great thing to get for new puppies and for older dogs. This post is an amendment to the earlier one…apparently dogs don’t always wait to get old before something happens. In Shinobi’s case, he is only a year and a half. Another thing I found out about pet insurance is that it doesn’t cover genetic conditions, which his problem is. My conclusion? There is no expense-proof way of purchasing a pet, so make sure and follow the tips in some of these other posts and build up an emergency account for precisely this type of thing. Ouch.

Gold. It comprises the vast majority of jewelry, is the highest medal awarded at the Olympics, and is the official standard of monetary exchange in most countries. People have fought for it, stolen it, mined for it, and been consumed by the thought of it since the beginning of humanity. (I have always wondered why gold was deemed the most “valuable”. Imagine if it were dirt or wood that some guy 6000 years ago deemed as precious instead of gold).

On a separate note (these are related, I promise), my co-worker’s dog recently passed away. Another co-worker’s dog isn’t doing too well, and yesterday morning I got a call from my wife that our dog was suffering from things I shouldn’t describe in a blog. Shinobi (my pup) will be ok, but during an ordeal like that it makes you think. What if he did pass away? It changes the way you see things when you run into a situation like that.

Back to gold.  As much as we strive for gold, or money, or big bank accounts or good interest rates, there are things (obviously) that more important. Yes, we all have to have money. We need to pay bills, invest in our futures, food, shelter, and clothing yadda yadda yadda. But a memory, feeling, or relationship can trump any amount of money. Btw, I know several people who have spent thousands on vet bills to try and save their pet. Would you spend 5,000 to buy a dog? Probably not. Would you spend 5,000 to try save your family’s companion of 10 years? Probably.

It wasn’t fun watching my dog get sick and worrying about him (I am at home as I write this making sure he is doing better), but it was a good reminder for me to take a break from the race of trying to get ahead financially and just enjoy the things I am blessed to have today.

Some things are worth more than gold.

Ah, Trader Joe’s. I love their frozen pizzas. I had just heard the oven timer go off, indicating that the crispy, meaty goodness I was about to consume was ready. I pulled it out of the oven and as I was chopping it into perfectly formed hand held wedges of love, a big chunk of onion fell to the ground. Within a split second my dog Shinobi (see below post for more information) seemingly teleported to the kitchen and devoured the piece of onion. Licking his lips, he looked up at me with perked ears.  I started to laugh at how desperate dogs are for food scraps, but then I faintly remembered hearing somewhere that onions were bad for dogs. It turns out that one of our blog subscribers named Kelly responded to my pet post with a comment on what foods are bad for dogs. If Kelly wouldn’t have written that, I would have never known…  I got online and googled “onions bad for dogs”, crossing my fingers while the results came up. Not good. Apparently, onions do some nasty damage to a dogs red blood cells, leading to anemia and in extreme cases, death. Typically it is large quantities of onions that have the worst affect, but being that Shinobi is a small dog I didn’t want to take any chances.

Shinobi looked more than pleased with himself after scrounging the onion, but I decided to call the vet and explain the situation anyways.  After being put on hold and listening to some awesome (yeah right) orchestra music (was it supposed to calm my nerves or something?) the vet assistant got back on and told me that the doctor says I need to get Shinobi to throw up. Oh, goodie.  I asked how I was supposed to accomplish that fun feat and she told me to make him drink one tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide. You know, that stuff that you use to dye hair and that you aren’t supposed to drink.  I was suddenly more concerned about him drinking hydrogen peroxide than I was about the onion. Deciding to trust the vet (imagine that), my wife and I grabbed the pup, sped down to Safeway, and spent $1.40 on a bottle of the stuff.

I ran out to the parking lot where my wife was holding Shinobi and unscrewed the lid. I figured out how to get him to drink it when I remembered the good old days of elementary school where we would stick our straws in milk, put a finger over the straw opening, and then draw the straw out, thus holding the milk inside the straw. I don’t know why that was so fun, but hey. So that’s what we did with the hydrogen peroxide…my wife put the straw in the bottle, thumb over the top, pulled it out and stuck the end in his little mouth. Judging from the noises and the twitching, I don’t think he liked it too much.  He made some interesting gestures but nothing “happened”. I called the vet back and in the middle of asking what to do since he didn’t throw up and now the chemicals where mixed up inside him, I looked down and saw him bobbing his head acting tweaked out. Half way through a head bob…BOOM! Partially digested puppy chow a la mode on the Safeway parking lot, crowned not with a cherry on top, but rather a large piece of onion. Woo-Hoo! I never thought I would be that happy over puppy waste…

And that is the story of how a blog comment and $1.40 bottle of hydrogen peroxide saved my dog’s life. Thank you for all your thoughts and comments, they are worth a lot more than we sometimes imagine. (A special thanks to Kelly for the comment!)

Meet Shinobi: a 1 year old, 14.5 pound miniature Australian Shepherd affectionately referred to as our “dog child”.  He likes to run around, play, fetch a frisbee, and eat peanut butter. Boy does he love peanut butter. He also loves to cost us money; lots of it (and I am not just referring to the shoes, books, furniture, and cell phones he has chewed on).  When looking for a puppy, we didn’t have a lot of money (that crossed bulldog off the list…a healthy one of those puppies will run you 2,500 bucks).  We ended up getting Little Freaky (one of his many nicknames) for 300, marked down from 700 because the breeder was local. I thought “another 100 on a kennel, food dishes, and toys and we are set”. Wrong. Very wrong.  Between all of his shots, medicine, vet visits when he got sick from eating who-knows-what, and getting fixed, we had to cough up another 1,500 bucks! Didn’t see that coming… We were forewarned to get pet insurance, but I figured it was a rip off like insurance tends to be. Turns out the gods were right on this one.  Something to think about when you get a dog: get pet insurance for the first year. After that they are good to go except for the occasional sickness, but that first year there will be all sorts of expenses; seen and unforeseen.  BTW – the majority of average purebred pups will generally run you 500-800 bucks to buy. It can sometimes be best to get them used (ha) or get a mixed breed from the local pet shelter. Not only do you miss out on getting them fixed, giving them shots, and worm/flea meds, but they don’t tend to ruin your carpet (if you know what I mean) when they are over 1 year old. The downside is you don’t get to play with them in puppy mode and sometimes they have issues from past owners.  Whatever you decide, buyer beware: dogs cost a lot more than you think.