Comments about ‘The dog ate the budget: The high cost of pets’

Placing a weight restriction on dogs actually backfires. It's the little yip dogs that weigh seven pounds that do the most damage and bark the most. Larger dogs, unless they have been neglected, tend not to bark as much and are less destructive, once past the puppy stage.

Re: Random | 7:50 p.m. Feb. 6, 2012

Get a cat. They don't ever bark .... or yip.

I could no more lose my dog than cut my arm off. Our family - a dog family for 30+ years - values our canine friends as a 10 (on a scale of 1-10). We have loved our dogs and they in turn have brought much love and fun to our family over the years. Expense? I spend about $12 a week on my dog. That is about 1/4 of the cost of gas I put into my car. Not much expense. Vaccinations are pretty cheap too over all. So - the high cost of pets?? I don't think so..

Wonder why they did not include horses in the figures. At least in the West, horses and burros are common pets. And their cost is much more than $1000 annual dollars. I know several people who cannot seem to pay all the bills yet insist on having pets, including horses. My own family refuses to see the costs associated with pet ownership; won't even discuss it. I want a horse but see that since I can't afford one, I shouldn't have one and don't. My grown kids, and cousins, and wife don't see it that way at all. Either they just bring them home without thinking about it or they bring them home ignoring the costs and then lose them to unpaid bills. In one case the ferret vet bill exceeded the rent and the rent went unpaid and the eviction proceeded.

Next pet is a roomba. I'm going to glue eyeballs and antennae one it.

My dog had since she was a puppy,at two months old shes now going on fourteenyears old She lived a very long time :)

We Had two cats that have passed away,and they all been kept indoors.They seem to live longer any ways.I would never place her there.

The nice thing about pets is that when you're out of money for food, you can use them as food. You can't do that with your kids... at least not yet.