That's fair enough but its your opinion. I dont share it.

Marina

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Hold on to your hopes and dreams
Hold on to who you are
Give in
Take the journey.

just a note for you marinam2, leptospirosis is spread by rats (amongst others) so you need to be aware of your dog's contact with rats as well as dogs.

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1.0. Veiled Chameleon - Dave
2.4.4 Bearded pygmy chams.
1.1. Fire salamanders - Antony and Cleopatra
0.0.1 Moorish gecko - Hobnob!
1 tropical fish tank
1 marine fish tank
3.0 Burmese cats - Xander, Chaos and Mayhem
0.1 Moggy - Simone

Hi peeps - anyone interested in a GREAT read.......Shock to the System (What Vets Don't Tell You About Vaccines)........will make you think

Back to the point......we have 6 labs, feed em ALL RAW and the cost is considerablt lower than the commercial food out there, around £40 a month.......and thats for 6 and not 1, i guess it's about getting a good reliable source for FRESH food and good prices

I would say my GSD costs about £30 a month to feed that's about £360 a year on food. I pay about £50 a year for the boosters (I get absolutely everything as she usually has a few nights in kennels a year and sees dogs on a daily basis whilst walking). I would say that worming and flea treatment probably costs around £50 a year too. £15 a month on insurance is then £180 a year.

Without any treats, extra goodies like toys, bones, collar, lead, etc. which I have no idea how much I spend on a year, my GSD costs me around £650 for the basics a year.

The border collie is about half that on food costs but the rest remains about the same. I probably spend about £1k a year on the 2 dogs as basics.

An added cost is either the cost of kennelling if we go away (I only ever kennel my dogs for 1/2 nights a year when I go to Hamm basically), and the added cost of taking dogs on holiday - if I go away for a night in the UK it can be up to £50 extra at the hotel to take the dogs. If we decide to take a weeks break we have to find a dog friendly rental, and it's usually around £50 extra per dog per week. I haven't added those sort of costs into the above. If you're someone who goes on holiday abroad - kennelling a dog for a week can cost several hundred.

Obviously the GSD is quitea big dog and my border collie very high energy so still eats quite a lot.. if you had a tiny dog it's just not going to cost the same in food or insurance etc..

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No internet at home for a few weeks, may take a while to respond. Should be back to normal in Sept.

I've not personally done the sums but my mate has regarding food and with the meat I get it costs about £1.50 a month to feed his terrier and roughly twice that for his lurcher. Drontals and flea treatment bought from online vet chemists for a lot cheaper than the vets. Personally my dogs got their initial vaccinations and their first boosters then that was it(my terrier is ten now and has only been to the vets once other than injections and thats with killing hundreds of rats in his life), my newest dog had his done by the breeder with a vaccine from the greyhound kennels which a lot of people swear by.
I'm not sure on the cost but I do know that if I had bought all their flea/wormers from the vets i'd be more out of pocket and if i'd bought their food from a petshop or even worse the vets i'd be begging on the streets

I pay about £40 pcm for mine, this includes food, treats, shampoo and drugs (ie vaccines not a crack addiction)

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No its not crack its cannibis!! hehehehe

Marina

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Hold on to your hopes and dreams
Hold on to who you are
Give in
Take the journey.

I often wonder where they get these figures from. Based on those sums, bearing in mind I have 14 dogs, it would mean that I pay on average around £4000 a month for my dogs upkeep. I know I spend nothing like that amount.I don't even get that amount per month.Mind you I don't happen to feed them on smoked salmon and caviar, they don't sleep on hand woven silk dog beds and don't wear 9 carat gold collars and spend 2 three week holidays a year at 'barkingham palace' 5* boarding kennels for the decerning canine, complete with room service, satelite TV, shag pile carpets and a personal maid.Poor deprived beasts that they are.

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Please sign my petition:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/poultry-vaccines/

Yet scientific data has shown that yearly boosters are not always necessary. My own vets for the last 10 years have advocated only the lepto gets done yearly (because of the environment my dogs live in) and the rest only once every 3 years with dogs over 9 years not being done at all.In over 30 years keeping dogs, I have never lost one to a transmissable disease.
I've always wondered why we can vaccinate our children so that their immune systems recognise and fight disease for the rest of their lives, but not do the same for dogs. I suspect money is involved somewhere, especially since the booster only costs around £3 to the vet but £35 to the dog owner.

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Please sign my petition:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/poultry-vaccines/

I owned a vaccine damaged GSD Rocky but had to Put him to sleep at 19 months. It blistered his tongue and pads and caused huge ulcers and a crippling arthritis and these where just his primary puppy vaccs. I am very wary about vaccs now but always have puppy vaccs done as the risk of Parvo with young pups is very high.

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