The Real Cost Of A Puppy

If you haven't had a puppy recently, gone through all of the ups and downs, sweaty nights of worry, long days of potty training, and messy clean ups when "they just came in from outside?" in the last few years, then I strongly recommend that you listen to my tale of Poe before you willingly and feverishly jump back into those puppy days again.

This is Poe,,, so impossibly cute, fluffy, small and adorable you can't contain yourself from scooping him up for a face dive smother. He is the epitome of everything that causes the heart to flutter. All puffy-fluffy rounded edges of irresistible and full of possibility. He is perfect just the way he was born... they all start out like this.

It's us, the humans, who keep having to relearn what we can't get right, over and over again....

Poe came from Craig's List. An ad online. Cheap and available at the touch of a cell phone text message. Ugh,,, the number of bad endings that start at Craig's List. I wish I could say that I have more happy endings than disastrous consequences from Craig but in truth I wish Craig took his List and shoved it, hard, and indefinitely. Craig has no business in the pet business.

Every person who has no business breeding hocks their unplanned pregnancies via Craig and that damned List. Get yourself a dog, or two, and POOF! you are in business! Lucrative, dog breeding, business. Everyone oogles over puppies. And,, your dog, your dog is of course the perfect specimen. No courses, credentials, signature clad paperwork, no accredited oversight, no business related taxes or license fees, ordinances, nothing. Put one dog with another, call it a "designer" breed (people pay BIG bucks for them,, sshh! don't call anything a mutt anymore,, no money in "mutt"). Go online buy some acronymed derivative of something with a K(ennel) and a C(lub) in any random order and now your puppies are "purebred with papers." (Probably the biggest sham around).

$80 bucks. That's what Poe cost. His new dad and old dad met at a nearby parking lot and exchanged cash (always cash) for a small being of mercies being. That's all it takes. No questions, no paperwork, no legitimate form of this being anything other than a casual exchange. Sounds like a great deal, doesn't it? $80 bucks for that face! I mean, who can say no to that?

ME! I will say NO! I will say it for about ten thousand more times over my vet career.  I will roll my eyes, swallow hard, sink into my shoes each and every time I hear this prelude. "I got him off Craig's List." Every time I meet a new pet for their first vet visit I ask. It is important for me to know. I need to heighten my degree of paranoia and understand how much more at risk to everything these guys usually are.  Why is that? Because, I know, I have learned first hand, how terribly awful these stories can end. You haven't heard about how disastrous Craig's goods can be? Have you? Well, sit back, hold on, and let me tell you how hard a happy ending from this beginning can be, and often is... Let me tell you about Poe.

The person who had no business with puppies dishes them out to anyone with the cash to exchange. Too often this is unknowing meets unprepared,, and too often I can't cast blame unequally on one side versus the other.

Puppies, kittens, I would venture to say every living being, listed needs a better chance than Craig can deliver. These are living, breathing, vulnerable beings. Let me highlight "vulnerable" again.

I could go on for days. Will it change? Or, ever stop? Not in our current climate. The want ads are the lazy mans answer to affordability meets accessibility. No contracts, no fenced in yard requirements, no questions asked. Me personally, I take Craig's List to be a puppy mill incognito.

Poe was purchased by a family with good intentions. A puppy is pure joy. Undeniably simply flat out ubiquitous joy. They all start out like this. Joyful. The dream of a lifelong companion to grow old with, but, as every vet and rescuer knows the first two weeks are fraught with worry that there is some lingering issue about to rear its ugly Sith yielding cypher.

Poe was as unplanned in birth as he was in purchase. Poe probably had a mom who wasn't vaccinated, and a dad who was most likely a transient fly by night passer-byer. No decision with any living thing should be based on these.

Within days of purchase Poe got sick. He wasn't playful, wasn't barking and was both vomiting and having diarrhea. All the classic signs of parvovirus which was the first thing he was tested for when he arrived at the vets office.

A parvo puppy is like a box of chocolate. (I stole that from one of my favorite movies,, but it holds). You never know what you are going to get. Medicine is also like this. There is no crystal ball to foretell the future. No play book to follow. And, our last best analogy is to try to give you "an average case" scenario, but, even this doesn't always readily apply. Parvo can be quick, cheap and transient, or, prolonged expensive and still deadly. Which puppy gets which? That is all guessing and hoping.

Veterinarians have to prepare clients for this. The complete Pandora's box a parvo puppy presents. Within a day or two of being placed in his new home Poe was a sick puppy with a treatment plan that started at a few hundred bucks and had the potential to end at thousands and still include death. Who, which of these  poorly pet-educated brand new parents can face this. They did just pay $80 bucks for him. Poe's first vet visit was crippling emotionally. His first visit also cost over $150 and he only had a diagnosis,,, there was no treatment included with this.

Stubborn determination is a valuable trait to possess when you are a doctor. I can tell you all straight up that I have saved more cases by my dogged determination than my decades of intellectual tutelage. My devotion to my patients, my sheer hatred for unhappy sad endings, and this infatuation with feeling like love conquers all is omnipresent. It is how I have decided I must live this veterinary life I am trying to live through and still like myself when I hang up my stethoscope. Happy endings happen if you let them.

I always (YES! always!) see parvo as treatable. I don't ever suggest giving up on treating them until they prove me otherwise. I firmly believe that this disease is our fault. That negligent, unknowing, or otherwise breeder, parent, transport person, well intentioned or not, exposed this puppy and medicine is available to treat. But, I also always have to be honest. I have to confess to people that I never know which puppy is going to go which way, and even with all of the money in the world, (for which I have yet to meet the person who can admit this), you might still lose your puppy. It just goes like that. It's a crap shoot. Surely treating earlier and aggressively increases your odds of winning, but even these guys can take tragic turns and succumb. It's a tough one to watch. A puppy dying slowly in front of you. The worst deaths are the deaths without empathy and advocacy. I say this because I have seen it. Its not fair, it's not right and it's not the path I take.

Every,, yes, every parvo puppy who meets my hands is offered treatment. I don't want to sound self-righteous, I am not. I want to sound determined. I am determined to give every treatable patient a chance. Screw the pessimists, the hardened, the pragmatic economists. That face! Do you remember that face? Try euthanizing it. Try to talk yourself in and out of all the excuses to make it justifiable. I'll give you a minute....

When Poe's story crossed my path it was a quick three sentence inquiry from a fellow veterinarian.

"We have a parvo puppy here. Can you take him? We don't have an isolation area."

Now this is a veterinarian I know well. She actually worked at my practice for many years. She knows how I feel about parvo. And puppies. She knows where my heart strings are anchored and how to make a serenade of them.

"We don't have an isolation area either." I reply. I know she already knows this.

"And the guy has no money."

Of course he doesn't. If he did she would have sent him to the ER, who is more than capable and versed in treating this.

I call her. The texts aren't going to shed enough light to make this case comprehensible or resolvable.

The story is always (always, always,,,) the same. New (brand spanking!) puppy just purchased, (no accountable breeder would have unvaccinated, unquarantined puppies to set out into the world... never mind the cash exchange in the parking lot and no accompanying paperwork), and almost immediately the puppy gets sick.. really, really sick. New pet parent has no idea what parvo is? No way to transfer to the ER (who requires a $1,000 deposit and forewarns the final cost might be a multiple of this), and now the client is calculating if it is easier and cheaper to just get a replacement? After all they have only had this puppy a few hours/days.

Do the math. This whole scenario started with simple math. $80 bucks off Craig's List versus almost (or up to) $1,000 through some breeder.

The conversation with the other vet goes a little like this..

"We want to transfer him to the ER. He is dehydrated. Can you use some of your Good Samaritan funds to help?"

This puppy will do best at the ER. They can provide 24/7 care. They are however, expensive. People don't go because they don't want to, or don't recognize their value, they don't go because they cannot afford to.

"Ummm, what the??,,, that money is money we raised. We internally feed into, for our clients.. the short answer is "no." I don't apologize for my audibly shock-filled curt reply. But, I cannot stop talking here. Remember that face? She has already, before the text messages even started, sent me that photo.

"I am happy to show you how to create your own internal clinic fund for your own clinic. Or show this owner how to set up a Go Fund Me page." I reply.

 ... crickets....

I speak again, "If the only options come down to euthanasia then call me. I will see if I can get one of the rescues to take him and I will provide the care pro bono." Like I said I always offer options. They may not be what the pet parent wants to hear, but I am not offering for them, I am offering to give this puppy a chance.

"Ok, I'll see what he (the owner) wants to do. I'll call you back." click.

I go back to work. There are other cases in front of me to worry about. Internally I feel that bubbling nausea of frustration meets vomit induced worry that another sick puppy will be biting the dust because another vet who wants to feel like they are offering empathy is merely shirking the guilt and another vet practice who is happy to let me do what they can for their own patient for free.. I have to admit it gets overwhelming feeling like I am the only one around willing to offer and provide empathy with meaningful service and care. Not just lip service and wash your hands.. (permit me a bit of bitterness in my verbal exasperation.. I have to harbor it and set it to sail as a sort of cleansing endeavor).

Poe arrived a few hours later. I documented his arrival the next day. He arrived quiet (always a bad sign), depressed, and dehydrated. He didn't interact with us, he just sat there cowering on his pee pad  in his bare wired easy to decontaminate cage.

So the story begins. Will he make it? Will it take weeks of no sleep? Wondering and worrying and trying to protect my heart as he tries to survive? This is also always the same. Invest yourself without killing yourself.

Miraculously Poe only got better. He never had one episode of vomiting or diarrhea with us. Within 2 days I was pretty sure he would be ok. We, the collective small group of us who had intervened on his behalf, all talked about how lucky he had been. How nice it was to have an easy case with our much sought after happy ending. At least the ending of parvo.

We also talked about what was the right thing to do next?

The real hard cost to us was a few hundred dollars. We all agreed to donate our time. It was a gift we were happy to give him. I suggested that we give Poe back to his family. We had heard that there were children who were crying and distraught with the surrender of their puppy. That was something we didn't want to be a part of. We wanted to remedy that, if we could.

I called the vet who knew the family and asked if it would be a good idea to at least offer Poe back to them? (in other words, I was asking her to vouch for them as I didn't know them at all).

"Yes, the kids would be so happy. He (the dad) seemed like an honest good guy,, he was crying too."

And so it was, a veritable happy ending would be had in totality! We were all conjuring up the reunion videos in our heads. The crying crowd as we delivered a healthy puppy back to 4 little kids. Move over Walt, we were about to have our own Disney moment.

Now I am a pragmatic seasoned vet. I have learned (always the hard way) that helping people isn't just about getting them across the land mines, it is about being to that glorious sunset with the rest of the sun filled days behind you safely. I owe Poe this too. We wanted to spell out in black and white what being a pet parent entailed; regular vet visits, vaccines, preventatives, neutering, training, time and money. Love, yes, love is imperative, but responsibility is what assists you in curtailing the remaining potential land mines ahead.

We all agreed to give Poe back without any incurred costs. I would use donations and we all donated our time. We all felt really good about being a part of the good in the world when there is already too much sadness.

I called Poe's dad to share the news. I confessed that we don't usually do this. We don't usually contact the original owners, but Poe had been such an easy success that we felt it was the right thing to do in his case. I discussed the plan to help identify future costs of care, and even told him that we could help him find low cost options. Poe would be given back to them healthy and happy and we would help them with whatever he needed to stay this way.

He told me his kids had been upset with Poe's departure. He also said he wanted to speak to his wife about it. I left him my cell phone number and he said he would call me back.

He never did. He also never said "thank you," or, "I'm glad/relieved/happy, etc, that Poe is ok."

And so the dream ended,,, the fairy tale was half fulfilled. Poe made it..

Poe is still with us. A week and a half later. We will do everything we can to be a part of his life. Indefinitely.

And maybe there is one less Craig's List customer out there? Maybe he feels like he dodged a bullet? Maybe he thought that $80 is all a pet needs for their whole life? Maybe he just didn't have the $500 bucks I estimated Poe would cost over the next 6 months, and he couldn't listen to the kids cry again? I really don't know?

Maybe being a dreamer is not as important as a doer? And just maybe I need to revel in my own happy endings, even when the world doesn't deliver them in packages as marvelous as a puppy.

I would like to Thank Jenn for always being ready to take another potential heart break on. For making as many sacrifices as she does and for hoping for "happily ever "after as often as I do. But mostly for making every case a purpose and for never asking or expecting anything in return. It  is always about the animals who need us, never about what it costs us.

If you have a question relating to your pets care you can ask me, the whole team of us at Pawbly, for free at Pawbly.com.

If you want to learn more about Poe please see my YouTube channel here. Or, follow our latest rescue endeavors at our Jarrettsville Vet Facebook page.