The Money Real Talk You Need To Know Before You Get A Pet

“Polo’s my dog,” I heard my 3-year-old son, Lou, tell a friend on a warm afternoon during school pickup last fall. I flinched a little because I knew the truth: Polo was not his dog. Polo, a 19-year-old female cairn terrier, actually belonged to Lou’s grandmother, my mother-in-law. But we were already spending so much time with her that Lou had mentally adopted her as his own. That’s why, when Grandma passed away this spring — suddenly, although she’d had cancer for 14 months — it was only natural that Polo moved in with my husband, Lou, and me. For Lou, this was a non-event: he’d already decided she was his, after all! But for me, it was a lightning fast transition from being someone who’d never had a pet in my life to becoming a full-time dog owner.

And it raised a major question. Google informs me that Polo’s 19 years are the canine equivalent of 101. She’s almost entirely blind and deaf. She takes daily heart medication and stomach drops. In other words: Polo probably won’t live much longer. When the time comes, we’ll need to fill the Polo-sized hole in Lou’s life… right?

I decided I needed to buckle up and accept that we are going to be a dog family. But if we decide to get a new dog once Polo passes away, what does that mean? What should we realistically expect to spend in our first year if we got a puppy? And what about afterward? To get some answers, I called Dr. Kerrie Moll Cavallo, a veterinarian at Middle Country Animal Hospital in Long Island. First things first: she said the vet you pick matters a lot financially. “Ask around to your friends, family, neighbors and co-workers,” she said. “Find out who they trust. That’s the best way to get reasonable prices.”

Then she told me about vet visits in the first year. Assuming you have a healthy puppy, Dr. Cavallo said you need a full office exam, and then puppy vaccines at 8 weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks, and 6 months. At her office — and she was very clear that prices vary depending on the provider — the first office visit is around $78, and vaccines are anywhere from $28 to $40. Her office also does a fecal sample at the first visit to test for worms, which is around $25; deworming, which is $20 and happens two or three times; and spaying for female dogs, which can be $300-$500 depending on the size and age of the dog, or neutering for male ones, which she said costs somewhat less.

I interrupted her to ask about pet insurance. She explained that unlike human insurance, pet insurance requires the owners to send bills to the insurer for reimbursement. If you have a healthy animal, she recommends regularly contributing to a pet-specific savings account instead, so that you don’t lose money if your dog never, say, needs surgery. Still, I looked into it. According to NerdWallet, the average accident and illness policy for dogs is $640/year.

In case you’re not keeping track, we’re now at $1,463.

So what else? When it comes to food, Dr. Cavallo said that as long as the label reads “meets nutritional standards as established by AFCO,” she recommends it. At my local grocery store, the cheapest bag I found with that designation was $4.99. Then she reminded me of toys and treats like freeze dried liver (about $10 a bag on Amazon) or dog biscuits (roughly $15 on Amazon). She also mentioned flea and tick products and preventing heartworm, and recommended NexGard Plus, which is heartworm prevention, flea and tick control all in one monthly pill. Online, I saw that NexGard ranges from $190-$213.

The last expense Dr. Cavallo mentioned was microchipping. At her practice, it costs $65, and is a safe way to ensure that you can find your animal if it ever runs away or gets lost. My calculator crept up to $1,786.

When the call ended, I was overwhelmed. Beyond a vet visit and some food, most of these expenses had never crossed my mind. Could we even afford this? I went to bed that night unsure how our lives would look post-Polo. Then at 2 AM I remembered dog walkers, and quickly Googled them (in Boston, where I live, the average starting rate is $16.85/hour). I grunted out loud and went back to sleep.

I was about to start work the next morning when my phone rang. It was Dr. Cavallo again. “Oh!” she said when I picked up. “I was expecting to leave a message. I just wanted to tell you that your article should encourage pet ownership. I hope I’m catching you before you’re too deep into it.”

“You need an animal in your life,” she went on. “Pet ownership increases life expectancy by five to seven years, especially for older people. When an animal sits next to you, it’s been known to reduce blood pressure and heart rate. And you should know — a dog reaches the emotional and cognitive level of a pre-verbal human toddler. That’s another child that never outgrows the cute phase.”

I laughed as we said goodbye, promising her I’d do my best. Then I looked back at my list of numbers. Who could put a price on reduced blood pressure, a longer life, and toddler levels of cuteness?

We’ll be sad to say goodbye to Polo, who loves to nap on the couch in one specific spot, tolerates Lou’s gentle pets, and spent almost two decades as my mother-in-law’s companion. For now, we’ll take her on short walks and carry her home when she gets tired. And when she’s gone, who am I kidding? We’ll find a dog of our own.

Jana Pollack is a freelance writer, editor, and creative strategist with over a decade of experience in digital media. She previously worked at theSkimm and at BuzzFeed, and has bylines in Romper, Insider, and Jenny Mag, among others.