It should not be surprising, after numerous adoptions, how much a dog can cost.  I know some people are super lucky and end up with the perfect dog who sighs with relief at finally being off the streets and doesn’t spend any time getting sick or eating furniture.  I’ve never had one of those dogs, but I’ve heard they exist. 

Let’s talk about Delilah, adopted from a farm.  Within the first three years of her life, she ate an entire bathroom’s worth of wallpaper, chewed a hole in my parents’ linoleum floor in their kitchen, ate part of my bed, ripped up carpeting and generally was extremely high maintenance.  Yes, I crate-trained her, and yes, she went to obedience school.  She eventually grew out of her puppy badness and into the wonderful calm halitosis-laden doggie we all knew and loved.  Then there was Mike’s attempt at adoption - the freaky, spastic Husky who howled when crated, ran with us for 5 miles and still wanted more, ate everything in her way (including Mike’s tie - WHILE he was wearing it), and unfortunately ended back up at the SPCA when we both realized apartment livin’ was not for her.  Then there was Sari, the Plott Hound mix who could not be contained.  First we finished off our 8 foot privacy fence (!!!!) - she jumped it with no problem.  Then we installed Invisible Fencing in front of the privacy fence - no amount of voltage contained her.  Then we built a huge run under our deck for her - she dug her way out of it.  I’ll never forget the neighbor calling to tell me Sari was hanging by her front paw.  It had gotten wedged inbetween fence posts and she was yowling and freaking.  One day she finally escaped for good, never to return again. 

Compared to the other dogs, Thora’s a dream.  Financially, though, she’s not so much of a dream.  First we had to repair the umbilical hernia that the SPCA could have easily repaired when spaying her, but the vet deemed it not necessary.  Enter anesthesia and another operation.  Right before the surgery, in one of her great crate escapes, she broke her left front canine tooth.  We were hoping it could just be filed down. Nope. Had to be extracted ($300).  The other option was a doggie root canal - $800-$1000.  We chose extraction.  During the experimental days when we tried to contain her to certain areas of the house, thinking she’d feel more secure, she ate her way through a metal crate ($89), ripped up the carpet and carpeting padding in our bedroom, got trapped in Lily’s room, ate both of her shades ($150) and ripped up her carpeting and pad, and became trapped in the playroom and shredded some of that carpeting trying to dig her way out.  Yesterday she found some food remnants on a wood placemat we have - she destroyed that thing.  Even missing one fang, she has no trouble eating her way through tasty items. 

Mike did a good job not freaking out about the carpet, or when we found out it was going to be a cool $5,000 to replace the carpet in the house. Thankfully we have two years of free financing to pay for it.  And truthfully, the carpet here is nasty, cheap Berber - it was nearly time to replace it anyway. Thora just sped up the process by about one year. 

My calculations of Thora’s net expense comes to the following:

Adoption and supplies:  $300
Crate:  $89
Blinds:  $150
Placemat:  $10
Wood trim:  $50
Carpeting:  $5000
Surgeries:  $700

Grand total:  $6299

Who says you need to buy a purebred to spend a lot of money? 

Now that we’ve figured out how to deal with Thora’s separation anxiety (ensure that she never, ever gets trapped in a room, and don’t even think about putting her butt in a crate), she’s been a dream.  We give her the run of the house, and close off the upstairs bedrooms.  I always put on the meditation digital radio channel - I think she really digs those monk chants and sitar sessions.  The worst thing she’s done is walk around with Lily’s Littlest Pet Shop dogs and bury rawhides in the couch.  She is absolutely the sweetest thing, gentle, patient, and deals with the girls mauling her all the time.  And it’s only slightly mean that I crack up watching her eat without one tooth.  There’s a lot of slurping and drooling and jowls flopping around. 

Speaking of the tooth, OMG.  When the vet decided it would be fun to hand me the tooth after it had been pulled, I nearly passed out.  First, I wasn’t expecting her to hand me a plastic bag with a somewhat bloody, scary looking fang in it.  I had NO IDEA dog teeth could be this big.  I got all woozy and nauseous, then got it together and decided to take a picture of it.  Excuse the quality - oh yeah!  That reminds me.  My camera is being fixed because Thora dragged it around like her puppy and broke the flash.  Here it is next to Thora’s pill bottle - helps with size perspective:

You can see the bottom part where it had broken off.  Big goofball - that’s what you get when you try to chew your way out of an airline crate. 

But how can you be mad when you see this face?