My Lady is twelve and has a ton of health issues. She needs insulin shots twice a day and now has dry eye and needs artificial tears every 2-4 hours. She is on so much medication for her various ailments I could be making a car payment with what I spend a month! Seriously, between all her meds and diabetic supplies, it runs about $250-300 a month, plus vet bills to monitor her various conditions. I figured it out and it costs me about $3,000 a year now just for her.
As tempting as it is to add more, especially rescues like Lady is, you always have to keep in mind that they will all be old one day and make sure you can care for them properly. Thank heavens I never added another one after Lady started having so many health problems so I never had to divide the funds between two or more dogs or worse yet, not be able to afford to treat her.
The downside of just having one is that I will be especially devastated when I lose her. Next time I swear I will have two, a Maltese and a Yorkie, but I am still concerned about health problems as Yorkies seem to be even more prone to them than Maltese.
I think it's always smart to look long term and think worse case scenario before adding another one. You have to have some sort of account set up for emergencies as vet bills can easily run into the thousands. I have heard so many stories on these forums over the years of people who were caught off guard by unexpected vet bills, even in young dogs, and have not been prepared. |