I belong to a very small rescue (only three of us) in New England. Here in MA vetting is very expensive and we try to cover the expenses through the adoption fee. All of our dogs are neutered/spayed, full blood work, dental, rabies shot, distemper/parvo titer, heart worm/lyme tested, fecal sample, etc
To have a dog spayed at my vet is around $450, and a dental runs at leat $200.. so a $500 adoption fee would not nearly cover the full vetting at my vets office....
Luckliy we have a vet that gives us a "reduced" rate but even then we are not talking that much, and it adds up quickly when you are completley vetting a dog, and our dogs we adopt out our fully vetted..
Sometimes we do take in a dog who has already been spayed/neutered but that is not common..and then we would take any extra money to help pay for any surgeries that we need to do or put it towards an older dog that does not have a high adoption fee.
Right now I am fostering a dog that needs 2 FHO surgeries..up here in NE one leg alone usually costs over $1000.00. We depend on our adoption fees and donations from people to cover the costs of our vetting.
Also, here in New England to buy a Yorkie puppy from a reptuable breeder you are looking at over $1500...and as mentioned earlier that does not cover any of the above vetting....that you would then need to do.
So I do not feel that $500 is a high adoption fee here in NE for a young dog that has been fully vetted...I would be spending much more than that if I was to buy a puppy from a breeder just in vetting never mind the price of the puppy.
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Kerrianne |