My co-worker Tony and I frequently chat about what the “real cost” of owning a dog is. Since my impulse purchase of Reggie, he’s asked me to closely track exactly how much money I spend on having a dog. He initially asserted he thought total cost of ownership over a dog’s lifetime was around $40,000. I thought that sounded way too high.
Although I haven’t meticulously kept track of every expenditure on Reggie, after this weekend’s purchase of a high-quality vacuum (the Eureka Comfort Oh! for $150, which I’m quite happy with thus far), I decided to do a little modeling work to show how much a dog ends up costing its owner. My assumptions are pretty conservative – $40 per week for a dog walker, about a bag of food per month, $15 per month each for doggie poop bags and dog treats and so on. I’ve estimated the capital spent in the first year on one-time items to be $2,355. These include the purchase price for the actual dog ($900), spaying and micro-chipping ($500), first year vaccinations ($200), puppy crate ($125) and so on. I’ve also modeled the expected annual expenditure, which turns about to be around $4,523. Assuming a 12-year life, the cost of owning a dog with my current model turns out to be $56,631. Good thing I didn’t produce this model before getting Reggie…
