A bit of a broad question about dogs...

Well I can only tell you about my own dog and our experiences with him but he's not a Boxer, he's a Cocker Spaniel.

We bought him in 2002 and he cost nearly £600. We found his breeders during a visit to Crufts and we were introduced to them and had a home visit etc before we were offered a puppy. I would suggest you find a breeder via the Kennel Club and make sure you get all the appropriate paperwork.

Cost-wise, he hasn't cost us anything in vets fees other than regular flea treatments and yearly jabs but he's also insured and that costs us £30 a month with Petplan ("fully comp"). I guess his yearly jabs are around £50 or so? We do also pay a lot for kennelling but obviously that would depend on how often you go away etc. We don't have anybody we can leave him with (eg family) so we pay a LOT for him to stay in a very exclusive kennels. I also pay £15 every seven weeks for him to have his coat trimmed.

Food - we buy his dry kibbles direct from the manufacturer (Arden Grange) and it costs about £20 a month. We also cook fresh meat every day for him (£2) and he has treats (£5 a week).

Then you've got the basics - lead, bedding, collar - that sort of thing - the initial "set-up" stuff.

I haven't gone into the investment of time because I'm assuming that you've thought about that massive commitment. It may seem like quite a lot when written down like that but we don't have any children or expensive hobbies and my car is a right old banger! ?

Hope that gives you some idea!

It's very hard to say. However, I'll stand corrected if anyone disagrees with this, Boxers can be quite susceptable to a number of illnesses so I'd do some good research into the breed first if you think costly vet fees might be an issue.

You want to try and feed your dog the highest quality food you can afford, really. I don't know if this is comparable to the UK but we feed our dog a pretty expensive food but it's worth it because I believe it's healthier for her in the long run. She is a miniature dachshund so obviously much smaller than a boxer and would therefore eat much less. She costs us $13 a fortnight for her raw food (that's about 7 british pounds). On top of that, we have to buy bags to pick up her poop, flea and tick treatment, heartworm medication, ear drops...the list goes on, really. Puppies cost quite a bit of money upfront because you have to buy things like a bed, food and water bowls, toys, collar and lead, treats, etc. If you get a young pup you most likely will have to buy some of its vaccinations and you'll probably want to have the dog spayed/neutered and microchipped. It's a good idea to enroll the pup in a training class for socialisation.

As an example for you, since we got our dog in February, she's been to the vet for an eye infection (common for her breed due to the close proximity to the ground), a blocked ear, a urinary tract infection (all these things also required follow-up visits after treatment), spay and microchip and a late night visit to the emergency vet for dehydration after vomiting from eating something she shouldn't have.

But that said, it's a good idea to get pet insurance which can cover a lot of treatment costs.

So really, it depends what your interpretation of 'expensive' is.

If you're buying from a breeder, there are numerous things to look out for. First, you must visit the pup in the breeder's home and you must also meet the mother dog (and father if possible). Are the parent dogs friendly and well socialised? Use your common sense when in the breeder's home - is it relatively clean? Do the pups seem happy and active? Although it sounds heartless, don't buy a runt. Can the breeder supply you with health records? Ask lots and lots of questions. Will the breeder allow you to return the dog to her if you find you can't keep it?

Thank you so much for such a detailed report, that really helps us a lot. Appreciate your time!! ?

To add to the great advice from the others ...

You'd probably get a Boxer pup for £400 easily enough, but I very much doubt it would come from lines tested for the various diseases they can suffer from. Advice on health can be found here http://www.boxerbreedcouncil.co.uk/health.htm and you would need to make sure you bought wisely. I would have thought £600-£700 is more realistic. Yes, you could save a bit of money initially, but what price heartache if pup turns out unhealthy, let alone the vet's bills (even if insured, there are still excesses).

PetPlan have a very good reputation for insurance, but there are other companies that also have great reputations, offer equal or better cover and are far cheaper. I use Direct Line, and find them brilliant. I have also never heard a bad word about More Than. Avoid like the plague anything offered or underwritten by Equine & Livestock/E&L - it will be cheap, but that's because they're notorious for worming out of paying.

M.

PS - I also feed Arden Grange, and it can be bought substantially cheaper from various places, including ebay, if you haven't discovered this CBH.

Oooh and I'd forgotten poop scoop bags! ? I think that's about £1.99 for 50 from our local pet shop. Also we needed feeding bowls and we had a pen for him when he was a puppy which was about £60.

It's amazing all the little costs that you suddenly think of!

Our costs per month are;

£100 - dog walker at lunchtime (we both work 9 - 5)

£30 approx for food (James Wellbeloved kibble)

£20 for raw hide bones (he eats one every night)

£18 Insurance

£10 Denta stix and bonios

Vet fees can obviously add up to a bit, even though we have insurance, we have an accident/incident prone dog. In the last year alone he's needed treatment for removing a WHOLE pinecone from his intestines. Various tummy bugs for eating yuckky things off the street. Nearly sliced his leg off when he skidded through glass. While insurance has covered the vet fees - we still had to pay out the £60 excess each time.

Holy moly thinking about it its a lot. No wonder we're skint!

I have also found that being a dog owner has made me more of an impulse buyer - obviously these are unnecessary things - because I'll go to a petshop and just HAVE to buy her something. She gets really cold here in the winter so she'll have a selection on jumpers to choose from this year. I might even get her some boots.

We did have a dog walker who charged £8 for 40 minutes and he used to walk our dog twice a day, three days a week!! I gave up work earlier this year so we lost that charge.

Oh - we also bought a car harness for our dog as he usually travels on the back seat but you may decide to go for a grill/barrier thingy.

To be honest, I think kennelling is our biggest outgoing and the other smaller costs just sort of get swallowed up and we don't tend to notice them.

Our dog was a rescue so we paid £60 for her. She was already spayed and microchipped.

Food is around £20 a month

She is too old for insurance cover but as a rough guide since we've had her (5 years)we've spent

£200 on dental treatment

£350 on breast cancer treatment

£100 on eye care as she scratched her cornea and almost blinded herself

Add to that the usual jabs £25 a year, flea treatment and worming is around £20 a year (I buy from the internet not the vets as it works out cheaper).

Pet sitting and grooming costs around £200 a year

It might seem a lot, but my goodness, she's worth every penny ?

It is very sensible to think about costs before getting a dog.

I agree with Marsie about the cost of buying a dog. A cheaper puppy is almost always not from a good breeder and will probably be a false economy. I think about £600-£700 is right, so maybe allow £1000 for pup, puppy wormer (pups need doing more often than adult dogs at first) vaccinations, some food, bed, toys, maybe a crate, collar,lead,bowls etc.

Look for a someone breeding KC registered puppies who's parents have both been health tested. It seems basic health tests are hip scoring and heart testing aswell (although they may be others, so do check) and you need to ask to see the certificates that prove these tests have been done. A good breeder will ask you quite a few questions, so be prepared for that. See the pups with Mum, although the breeder may not have Dad (this is in no way a negative) but you should be able to speak to his owner or see him.

Expect to keep a dog the size of a boxer for around £60 a month, I would guess, maybe a bit extra for 'luxuries' such as toys, treats etc.

Vaccinations cost between £30 and £60 a time, depending on what your vet charges. Puppy courses are usually the same as the yearly booster cost wise.

Wormer is about £5 every three months. Flea/tick treatment is between £3 and a month if you do it routinely, but I only do it twice ayear as I don't like putting chemicals on/in them if I don't have to and they have never had fleas and we don't have a tick problem here.

I hope this helps.

My sister has a boxer, andmy advice is to get the most comprehensive insurance cover you can.

As he has got older, he has now got arthiritis in the neck, and has to have injections and medicines - not all medicines are covered by insurance. The vitamin and mineral tablets he has are £30 a month alone.

They are lovely dogs though - albeit boisterous, even when they are older, which can result in pulled muscles (still think they are puppies when they are 10 years old!)

My boxer puppy who is now 6 months old cost me £850. She has a very good pedigree and becuase I have had boxers before i know the importance of looking at what you are getting. So far she has cost me £65 in vaccinations, £150 in puppy classes, £25 ish in worming stuff and approx £100 in food and £31 a month insurance ! I have had her since she was 8 weeks and already the costs have started to mount up. I love he to bits but she is quite costly imo.

Our dog (Jack Russell) cost us £200 as a pup - relatively cheap as he's not a pedigree. Insurance is £11 a month with direct line. Food around £7 a month (James Wellbeloved), worming and flea treatments are as others have said.

Training was a big cost for us in the first year - first puppy school then private training sessions to work through some issues (and to educate us as dog owners). Money well spent though - I'd estimate that we spent around £250 - £300 overall.

Initial 'set up' costs were proably around £300 - Crate at home, bedding, bowls, collar, lead, smaller crate to fit in the car. He has pretty much 2 of everything as my parents look after him when we're at work so he has a 'home from home'. I bought loads of books and did a lot of reading before he came home so we knew what to expect re crate training (getting up around 4 times a night for the first few days).

I'm not sure that I'd recommend a Boxer as a first dog - they can be a bit quirky. Everyone I know who's had one said that they were wonderful dogs but hard work. There's a beautiful Boxer dog who lives in my village who is absolutely enormous - just pure muscle. The lady who walks him never seems to be enjoying herself much - I always know when she's out with him as all you can here is "No! Tom! Come Here! Don't! Sit! Stay!"

Dog ownership should be fun for everyone - try not to get too fixated on one breed just because you like the look of them (remember the husky thread?). Do your research, find a breed that will suit your lifestyle and expectations for the future - it's a huge commitment and a big tie.

We have a mini schaunzer and investigated the breed carefully before we got her. We also paid a more than the minimum as we knew the breeders were good and reputable. We paid £650 for her.

We took out pet insurance and boy am i glad we did! When she was only 4 months old, i noticed a small lump on her leg. Took her to the vet's who thought it was an infected bite and gave us anti-b's. This didn't help so she went back for more tests. They decided to operate and removed the growth. They then ran tests on that and found out it had been malignant but caught at a very early stage. So now she goes for check ups regularly. If we hadn't insured her, this would have cost us thousands of pounds.

We don't clip her coat but she goes to a groomer twice a month for a good groom and we brush her every day. Groomer costs £10 a visit.

She is now on her second level of puppy classes, they cost £5 per week (1.5 hour class).

Initial pay-out was for a bed, crate, leads, bowls, brushes, collar, poop bags, toys, chews, car harness, chew deterrant spray (we didn't need this in the end though!), puppy house training pads, treats, denta stix.

Once we'd paid up for most of this though, it's just a chase of chucking a few things in our tesco trolley every week (treats, chews, poop bags etc) and picking up new leads or toys or brushes as and when she needs them.

We're lucky that she doesn't need to go in kennels when we go away as my SIL takes her. She's very at home there. Due to the hours we work, she is never alone for more than 3 hours and that's one day a week. We're out the house for 6 hours so a dog walker comes once a week to take her out for an hour (£8).

Our lives are much better for having her. We get up earlier at the weekends and go for big walks on the beach/in the woods or go hillwalking much more often than we used to. We've met more people and made some friends through her puppy classes too. We researched all the resturants and bars where we live that allow dogs and now spend our money going for brunch in those places, reading the paper with a dozing puppy at our feet. It's so worth it!

Sorry but this is down to poor control or lack of training - my boxers have always walked to heel off the lead and have been well under control at all times - you get ut what you put in! I have owned staffies and a lurhcer too both of whoch were far harder to control when out than my boxers!

Gah, I typed a big ol' reply but I always get an error message when I try to quote.

I agree with you completely mrs lilly. My point is that a novice dog owner may not understand just how much time you have to put into the training, and that the size of the dog could be intimidating to the owner itself.

I see lots of big dogs that are permanently kept on the lead because the owners are worried about control issues - probably unnecessarily. Choosing to get a puppy is such huge committment, so I think it's terribly important that people think through all the potential issues for the future. Speaking to a dog trainer would probably be an excellent idea when thinking about a breed that will suit your expectations.

That's all ?