Moose weighed 71 pounds on the scale at the vet's office last week. The vet tech wrote it down, scratched behind his ears and said he was right where he should be for a dog with his frame. Moose responded by trying to climb into her lap.
We adopted Moose from a rescue in 2022, a few months after we moved into our duplex. He's a big red hound mix, around five years old now, with a howl that could stop traffic and a deep personal grudge against the mail truck. He's also one of the best decisions we've ever made. But he isn't free, and since this whole blog is about knowing where our money goes, I added up the last twelve months of Moose, August to August.
The year in numbers
| What | Year cost |
|---|---|
| Dog food, 9 bags at 40 lb each | $342 |
| Flea, tick and heartworm meds | $168 |
| Treats, chews and toys | $48 |
| Yearly checkup, shots and heartworm test | $172 |
| Fence repair | $23 |
| The sock incident | $12 |
| Total | $765 |
That's about $64 a month. Our budget has a Moose line of about $45 a month, and it's meant to cover his food, his meds and his treats. Those three come to $558 for the year, or $46.50 a month, so the line is close to right. The checkup, the fence and the sock came out of whatever happened to be left over in those months, and that's the part I want to fix.
Food, meds and the vet
Moose eats a mid-priced dry food from Walmart that comes in a 40-pound bag for about $38. A bag lasts him around six weeks, so we go through nine a year. We tried a cheaper bag once. I'll spare you the details, but we switched back.
Flea, tick and heartworm prevention is the line people forget about. Ticks are everywhere out here, especially on the trails at Long Branch, and mosquitoes carry heartworm, so he gets both all year. We buy six-month packs from the vet, and for a dog his size it comes to $168 a year. Bigger dog, bigger dose, bigger price.
His yearly visit was $172 for the exam, his shots and a heartworm test. Our vet is a small country practice that doesn't push a lot of extras, and I appreciate that more every year.
We don't carry pet insurance. We've talked about it and haven't decided either way. For now, our emergency fund is what would cover a true emergency.
The fence and the sock
In April, Moose spotted a rabbit on the other side of the chain-link fence and decided the fence was more of a suggestion. He dug a hole under one corner big enough to get his head and front legs through before I caught him. Tyler fixed it that evening with a short roll of wire fencing, a box of landscape staples and two bags of rock along the bottom. Total: $23. We told Mr. Dale, our landlord, and he seemed pleased we'd fixed his fence for free. There's no monthly pet rent here, only the $200 pet deposit we paid when Moose moved in, and I'd like to see that deposit again someday.
Then the sock. In June, Moose ate one of Tyler's work socks right out of the laundry basket. I called the vet's office in a panic. They asked how big he was, how big the sock was and whether he was throwing up or acting off. He wasn't. They told us what to watch for: vomiting, not eating, straining in the yard, a sore belly. If any of that showed up, we were to bring him in right away, because a sock that gets stuck can mean surgery, and that kind of surgery runs into the thousands.
Two days later the sock came back out in the backyard, more or less in one piece. Tyler did not want it back. The only money we spent was $12 on a laundry hamper with a lid, which now lives in our bedroom closet with the door shut.
Starting this month, I'm adding $15 a month to the Moose line for next year's checkup. Twelve months of $15 is $180, which covers a visit like this year's with a little room for prices going up. That way the vet bill shows up as a line in the sheet instead of a surprise.
$765 a year sounds like a lot when I write it down. Spread out, it's about $2.10 a day for the dog who sleeps across both our feet every night and greets us at the door like we've been gone a year. We'd pay it twice.
