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Making You & Your Dog Happier


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The true price of a puppy

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 What is a puppy really going to cost you?

dog on lead karen wild

The other day I saw a list of puppy prices, a year on year comparison. For anyone still considering a pup right now, you need to know that the price of a puppy has doubled, and in some cases trebled, compared to the same breed and time of year last year.

Covid-19 clearly has had some impact on this market, since a lot of people at home have time now to look after a dog. Let’s hope you can keep that level of care going. Dogs are social creatures and need regular contact throughout the day. It isn’t fair to leave them for more than a few hours at a time (and no, I don’t mean just seeing them for an hour lunch break in a seven hour working day five days a week). 

The financial cost doesn’t start at purchase. This isn’t just a car that we then buy and MOT once a year. A dog is a living being and needs regular care and money spending on them to make sure they are safe, happy and well. Those of us with dogs can easily tell you about the Vets bills that sometimes come out of the blue. We can also tell you about the time and cost of training if you aren’t going to end up with a bigger problem further down the line.

I had one call some time ago from a lady whose young dog had wrecked their carpet. I told her my rate for helping them with the dog who was clearly needing some training and support. She said she couldn’t afford it. I appreciate that, and I also think that trainers should and do charge properly for our time, qualifications, experience. However she also told me that the puppy had cost £2400 (of which my proposed fee was a tiny fraction). She simply had not factored in the additional costs that educating the puppy would incur, and of course, repairing the carpet was going to cost her an awful lot now.

The same for insurance. Thinking that you won’t pay into a policy but that you will just add money into a pot is a risky plan. Vets are highly skilled and there is no ‘Vet NHS’ (although the PDSA may help if you’re really stuck). If you have a spare £2000-£5000 sitting around, maybe you don’t need to factor insurance in. Even so, your dog needs third party liability insurance in case they cause accident or injury. 

So, a little thought for you considering getting a puppy or a rescue dog – the costs are far more once you have them, than when you start. There’s no such thing as an impulse bargain when it comes to getting a dog.

Pack Leader is out of date for dogs

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Dog owners always like to know the best ways to help their dog, and often tell me they watch every program that is out there to learn more about this amazing animal. However, just as we don’t think Made in Chelsea is unscripted, or believe we would be able to mimic Bake Off recipes just by watching the show, we really need to accept that TV shows for dogs are there for entertainment – sadly, often at the cost of the dogs’ welfare.

It’s still on TV, and talked about as a mysterious wonder, the idea that we somehow have to be ‘pack leader’ of our unassuming pet dogs. People even call themselves dog experts and have probably paid a few hundred pounds to ‘qualify’ in the topic. It means that dogs are often treated badly, punished physically, shushed at in a weird hissing noise, or yanked around on their leads. All in the name of ‘pack leader’.

What if I told you that this ‘Pack leader’ dominance theory was never proven and is at least ten years out of date now?

Even the person who originally talked about ‘alpha’ (referring to wolves, which are of course, not dogs) has said he was wrong. Dr David Mech from the University of Minnesota has since recorded himself on Youtube saying how and why this wasn’t accurate. This is good science. Good science finds new evidence that renders the old theories inaccurate, and starts using the new evidence instead. It’s not anything to be ashamed of. It’s simply that we know more now.

Dogs are intelligent creatures that we have genetically modified over the years to suit our purposes. That used to be mainly for working – hunting, helping guard our homes, alerting, picking things up, but also sitting on our laps and being cuddly. Not all dogs were bred the same of course, that’s why even the ancient Greeks had little white fluffy dogs for companionship, and great big hounds for pursuit.

However, everyone has always been aware that we have to be responsible for training our dogs to do all the things we need and want, so that they and we are safe. This doesn’t mean being horrible to them in the name of an imaginary ‘pack leader’. It means understanding how they like to live, that they are driven largely by scent, movement, food, safety, and of course, mating, and how great they are at things we humans are often terrible at, which is why we want them around. They are above all nowadays, our friends, and they need us to help them and teach them in a sensible, kind and clear way – not demand and dominate.

What’s new pussycat? What your cat wants you to know.

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We’ve all had time to reconsider our daily lives and routines, our safety and all the other things we probably took for granted, until quite recently. Now we have settled into the new situation, it has changed yet again. Some of us are getting stressed and anxious again since our lives have become unpredictable, over and over.

What does this have to do with cats?

Cats, as do all animals, like to know what is safe, where their next meal is coming from (sometimes twenty times a day), who they can trust and who to stay away from. They want to know where it’s warm and cosy and where they won’t feel like something is going to be risky.

Sounds familiar?

Your cat is probably far better than you at observing all of the routine changes, no matter how minute they are. Cats are very good at this, highly sensitive to it in fact. It isn’t a surprise, since they can be so skittish one moment and completely unbothered, the next. If you’ve ever owned a cat that is hugely confident with absolutely everything and everyone, that is a rarity. Most cats take offence rapidly and won’t hold back from scratching, even if you are trying to pet them for a moment longer than the 1.25 seconds they decided was going to be acceptable.

My point is that your cat wants you to understand that for them, changes can be stressful too. They don’t make a big fuss about things, because that’s not a good survival tactic, but they will show you in plenty of more subtle ways that they aren’t happy. Keeping away from certain people, leaving the room when things happen, grooming themselves frantically, even sleeping ‘propped up’ rather than splayed out. Things can change from moment to moment, so that cat that displayed his fluffy belly to you in the sunshine will suddenly grab your arm and scrabble his back feet in. Us humans have to learn our lessons, don’t we?

Cats can be demonstrative and cuddly sometimes, but not all cats are. Forcing them is not a good idea, since you can be really hurt. Cats do not live under the ‘dominance’ myth, any more than dogs do, and to anyone suggesting this – stop it, it’s harmful and untrue. So, what’s new with your cat? Well, nothing really, but your thoughts about cats could reflect what we know now. Cats are sensitive and intelligent, care about territory and resources and will battle for these. It’s a safety game. Just as our lives are currently.