Forget the mortgage, the school and university fees, the payments into your pension plan, if you want to blow twenty grand in a year – just for the sheer hell of it – get yourself a dog. This is what I did five years ago, and I’m still paying the price.
When a shiny black Labrador pup we named Cuba came ambling into my life, the cost of keeping her was the last thing on my mind. Never having had a dog before I was more concerned about being a good dog mother to my new baby, whether she’d wee all over the carpet and if I’d get mugged walking her round the dark neighbourhood streets at 11 at night.
Five years down the line I reckon my pampered pooch has just about cleaned me out.
Considering one of Cuba’s grandparents starred in the Andrex ad, I considered her quite a snip at £450. What I hadn’t bargained for that first year was well over £2,500 in vets fees, Pet Plan insurance, spaying, ear-syringing under general anaesthetic (the poor baby had a wax production problem) and antibiotics.
After a third round of antibiotics for some nasty stomach bug that wouldn’t go away and a vet diagnosis that she had major allergies – she’s so very 21st century in that respect – I decided to go to a homeopathic vet who, for a mere £75, drew up a psychological profile.
‘What makes Cuba anxious, what makes her happy?’ the vet asked me in all seriousness. It was like being in therapy. But what about me, don’t you want to know about me, I thought selfishly, as I resorted to shaggy dog stories to satisfy the vet.
I had nightmare visions of being suspected of dog abuse and getting a visit from the social. ‘Place these on her tongue and come back in a fortnight,’ I was told as I left the surgery clutching an expensive phial of little white tablets.
