[yorkietalkjilly]

Just a word about the finances of buying a dog. Yorkies can get expensive since they are small, often fragile dogs. Mine started hacking as if he had a hair in his throat or something last February and standing with his tail down and looking at me with his ears out to the side, sad looking. After two hours of that, I took him to the vet who x-rayed, examined him and said he had an enlarged heart and get him to the E.R. clinic ASAP to get his cardiac situation more evaluated and some life support overnight. The x-ray was $75.00 or $80.00 and then to the ER vet. They redid x-rays, examined him, took blood & said he had early pneumonia and would need to stay the night on fluids and observation, further cardiac tests such as a cardiac Doppler and have a cardiologist read it, possibly see him. After visiting with Tibbe and leaving him sick there, it was another $1200.00 on the way out the door to go home and wait. I got a phone call a few hours later to say that his cardiac Doppler was read as completely normal, the cardiologist cleared him and it seemed his only problem was early focal pneumonia and I could pick him up that next afternoon. Another $800.00 or so, Tibbe was well and I got a lot of praise for getting him in so early and thus saving him a bad case of pneumonia. He was on a lot of medication for the pneumonia, some of which caused a big GI upset and more vet care and costs related to the GI issues. Three food changes and more medicine for his tummy later and about $60 for that, we had a food he could eat with the GI problem and he was doing a lot better bowel-wise.

Do all new Yorkie dogs coming to live with you have this kind of couple of months of problems and expenses - by no means! You could get the healthiest dog in the world and only have the usual vet, vax, chipping, dental and regular costs and never have to pay for a sick dog to be treated. But the point is, if you are having to save up to get a dog, what happened to my Tibbe last year just shows you that having the money to buy a dog is often just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. If you are not financially prepared to handle vet bills of that nature right now, this might not be the best time to get a dog or cat. Hate to sound like such a downer, but it's better to know what you could have to face financially than not know how expensive it can get in a hurry.