Rescue Expenses

EXPLANATION OF THE RESCUE'S EXPENSES

The most frequent statement we hear is, "OH, I thought they would be free! or $25"

Our dogs/puppies cost what they do because:

We work with out of town shelters because Wisconsin has such a great neutering rate, that puppies are hard to come by. Also there are parts of the country due to their economic status that cannot afford to neuter/spay or have nice shelters for the dogs. We pay a 'pull' fee to these places. They do not let us take the dogs for free. This can be anywhere from $15 to $100 per puppy! There is also transportation costs to get to the shelters. Sometimes we have to board the puppies for a night or so, and boarding costs for the person going to pick them up.
More often than not, our puppies are vet checked. The older dogs are heartworm checked, often have their rabies shot, and any needed medication.
Many of the puppies/dogs are now coming already neutered. We have to pay for that. Some also are microchipped now. That's a fee of around $35 at your vet.
They are dewormed at the rescue. That alone is worth a million dollars! Trust me, you don't want to deworm a puppy.
They are treated with Frontline flea/tick preventative. Two reasons, one even in Wisconsin it is necessary, but most of our puppies/dogs coming from the South really need it!
All our puppies come with a minimum of their first shot, and Bordetella vaccine. Many have more than that. We are saving you that vet cost at your vet.
Sometimes, and hopefully not often, we have a puppy get sick. This is unfortunate, but we will spend the necessary money to recuperate them. This can sometimes run into hundreds of dollars. Add to that if there were other puppies transported with them, they will need preventative medicine too.
We have a full-time director. She has decided this is her career, and she spends her time contacting the shelters we work with (which can take hours a day to finalize our list of puppies). She does some fostering, she does the home visits, she answers our rescue phone which rings ALL the time when we list puppies, she goes to the vet a few times a week, and spends time explaining why puppies aren't free! She has to keep in contact with our foster homes, her assistants, and her other volunteers. This is more than a full-time job, and so she needs to be paid at least a bit.
We house them for at least seven days if they are young. This is because many diseases that young puppies can get do not show up for several days. Many of these are deadly, and a new puppy owner will not know what to do, or the treatment could be expensive. We have to pay for food, blankets, toys, etc. for our gang. We also have to give them baths, plus electricity costs and phone costs, etc.

In addition to that our shelter puppies come with:

They are exposed to other puppies, dogs, cats, and people. It is important that at a young age they are familiar with other animals so they develop socially.
We always at least start their housebreaking. Depending on their age, and how long we have had them, this training can vary, but it is started.
We crate-train them.
We temperament test them so that we can put the right puppy/dog with the right family situation.
They are in a caring foster home environment which helps with housebreaking, and learning their temperaments.
We provide you with a lot of information about raising puppies and dogs.
With the older dogs we do some basic obedience training as time allows.
Because you adopted from us, you are eligible for Petco's coupon book usually valued at about $170.
You have a place to turn to with questions. We work with dogs 24 hours a day, and our director and some of the volunteers have worked with hundreds of dogs, and have obedience trained their dogs.
We provide you with breed knowledge (that is, if we can figure out the breed!), so that you can make an intelligent decision before adopting.

All of a sudden our prices don't sound so bad, so go ahead and apply for one of our puppies!

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