What are the top 10 most expensive dogs?
Fetching for a high price tag? Here are the top 10 most expensive dogs and their average prices, according to Readers Digest:
How often should you walk your dog?Best practices for keeping your pup healthy.
What human foods are safe for dogs to eat? Heres what is and isnt safe for your pet.
Canadian Eskimo – $8,750
The Canadian Eskimo is among the oldest and rarest dog breeds in the world. The Thule people introduced this working dog to North America around 1,000 years ago from Siberia. Unfortunately, diseases and a reduced need for sleds contributed heavily to the drastic decrease of the Canadian Eskimo’s numbers.
Today, estimates show there are only around 300 purebred Canadian Eskimo Dogs left. As such, it does not come as a surprise that a purebred Canadian Eskimo pup can set you back around $8,750.
The Dollars and Sense of Breeding: Six Financial Considerations
Now that you’ve thought about some of the broad criteria involved with selecting a breed, it is time to move on to the things that’ll affect your bottom line.
Hopefully, the preliminary considerations we’ve already discussed have helped you to narrow down your potential list to three or four possible choices. The following questions should help you whittle these down even further.
Note that the following considerations are very bottom-line oriented – they may even come across as a bit cold or uncaring. But if you intend to breed for profit, there is no way to get around these types of questions and issues.
Litter size is one of the most critical factors in determining the profitability of a given breed. However, the issue is a little more nuanced than most would-be breeders initially understand.
At first glance, fecundity appears positively correlated with profit – but this doesn’t always turn out to be true.
Sure, you’ll make more money selling a dozen German shepherds than you will by selling two. But the funds you collect aren’t profit – they’re income. You’ll have to use a large portion of this money to cover the costs of caring for the puppies and their parents.
And in some cases, your profits will decrease with larger litter sizes.
For example, the more puppies you have, the more food you’ll need. You’ll also have to spend more on vaccinations, crates and chew toys, and you’ll spend more time caring for the individual puppies too.
These needs may all cost the same amount on a per-puppy basis, but collectively, the costs of meeting these needs may exceed the amount of cash you have on hand. Do you have a few thousand dollars laying around to support your puppies for 8 weeks before you can make your first sale?
It’ll also take you more time to find a dozen customers than it will take you to find three or four. This will increase the amount of money you’ll need to spend on food and veterinary care, and it’ll also take up more of your time.
If it takes you too long to find customers, you may even have to start reducing your asking price as the puppies age.
Finally, consider that the more puppies you have, the more likely one or more of them will suffer from serious (read: expensive) medical issues. If you have one puppy that requires surgery, you may end up losing money on the entire litter.
No matter what breed you decide on, you’ll need to provide all of the veterinary care necessary for your adult breeding stock as well as their offspring for the first 8 to 12 weeks of life. This will always be a significant cost, but some breeds typically require more veterinary care than others.
Rottweilers get cancer more often than many other breeds. Both English and French bulldogs often suffer from respiratory conditions that require surgery to correct. Great Danes can be expensive to sell, but they’re susceptible to bloat, and German shepherds frequently experience digestive issues.
Some breeds even have characteristically complicated pregnancies. French bulldogs, for example, are often unable to give birth normally – most mothers will need a Caesarian section to deliver their puppies. Such procedures are not cheap, and they’re part of the reason that Frenchies are pretty pricey.
These issues will affect your bottom line, so you must consider veterinary care when picking the breed you want to work with.
Different dog breeds require different amounts of space, so you must factor in your living situation when picking a breed.
You could probably raise a litter of pugs in a guest bedroom, but you’d never want to attempt the same thing with Great Danes or Newfoundlands. Instead, you’d probably want a dedicated room or building to house them.
A large yard will help provide some elbow room and running space for big puppies, but you don’t want to raise puppies outdoors. Doing so will expose them to myriad pathogens, which will not only lead to sick and miserable puppies, but to lost profits as well. Instead, you’ll always want to raise puppies indoors.
Simply put, if you have space limitations, you’ll likely want to stick with a small breed.
Supply and demand are important forces in all markets and dogs are no exception. Breeds in low demand typically fetch relatively modest amounts of money, while breeds in higher demand command premium prices.
Lots of people want Samoyeds, so they’re pretty expensive. On the other hand, relatively few people want Chinese crested dogs (they’re definitely an acquired taste!), so they are priced rather reasonably.
However, the relative availability of a breed also factors into this issue. Once again, let’s consider Labrador retrievers.
Labs are phenomenal pets, and they’re currently rated as the most popular breed by the American Kennel Club (AKC). But you don’t have to look very hard to find Lab puppies for sale – they’re everywhere. Accordingly, despite their considerable awesomeness, Labs are pretty affordable.
On the other hand, some breeds aren’t especially popular, but because they’re so rare, they are quite expensive.
Thai ridgebacks and Canadian Eskimo dogs are two good examples of high-priced dogs that are in relatively low demand.
Relatively few people have even heard of these breeds, so they don’t exactly “fly off the shelves.” But because they’re uncommon, breeders are able to sell them for significant sums.
If your breeding project rises above the level of a hobby, you’ll have to think about obtaining an insurance policy to protect you from liability. Once again, the breed you select will influence this cost.
This isn’t usually a problem for those breeding small or medium-sized breeds. Instead, it is usually a problem for those who wish to work with giant breeds or those with aggressive reputations (regardless of the facts of the matter).
So, if you plan on breeding Rotties, Dobermans, pit bulls, Akitas, or any of the mastiff breeds, you’ll need to factor insurance costs into your decision.
And while we’re on the subject, you’ll want to consider the possibility that breed-specific legislation will shrink your customer base. Many municipalities are prohibiting some of these breeds (despite the complete lack of evidence regarding their efficacy), and you don’t want to decide to work with Presa Canarios, only to find them banned in your city at a later date.
Big dogs cost more to feed than smaller dogs do. You may only need a bag or two of food to keep a litter of Pomeranians fat and sassy, but you’ll need a truckload to keep your litter of Irish wolfhounds well fed.
This doesn’t always mean that large dogs are less profitable to feed than their smaller counterparts. Some large breeds command prices that are high enough to offset these increased food costs. But you’ll want to do the math and figure out how much your food bill will eat into your profits before making a choice.
Just be sure that you don’t skimp on food quality to try to increase your profits. Remember: The well-being of your dogs and puppies must be your primary concern. You may not need to purchase an exorbitantly expensive food, but you certainly want to ensure that your puppies and adults get the nutrition they need.
In fact, the food you feed your female breeders will have a very significant effect on their reproductive output.
Pups may also need additional addition by means of hand bottle-feeding. You might need to buy puppy milk replacement (aka puppy formula) if the mom isn’t producing enough milk for all her little ones.
These Are 10 Most Expensive Dog Breeds
Pet care is anything but cheap. According to the American Kennel Club, the lifetime cost for small dogs, which have an average life expectancy of 15 years, is approximately $15,051, while large dogs, which have an average life expectancy of 10 years, have a lifetime cost of $14,480.
Other estimates tell a different story. According to Forbes, the lifetime cost of a dog can be anywhere between $17,650 a year to a shocking $93,520, depending on size, breed and care required.
But what about from the beginning? How much do some pups cost if youre looking to purchase rather than rescue? We have you covered on what is the most expensive dog, plus other pricey pooches.