Our dog passed away last summer. I got her as an adult - well I actually inherited her from an elderly lady I lived with in college. After she died, I took her dog. She lived to be almost 14. So... we are researching different types of dogs (my kids REALLY want a puppy), and I am shocked at the prices! I mean for a labradoodle or goldendoodle the prices are so high, and they are not purebred! I guess I was just out of the loop as to how much puppies cost nowadays!
Prices can range from $0 (on Craigslist) to thousands or even tens of thousands for a top bred show quality prospect. Breed popularity/rarity is also important. Labradoodles and goldendoodles, which are just crossbreds, are "hot" right now so the prices will be higher. Puppies gotten from rescue can be expensive depending on the type of puppy and if you get the puppy from the animal shelter or a breed rescue. Rescues can charge as much as $300 for a puppy but at least the puppy will be up to date on shots, wormed and hopefully spayed or neutered already. Personally if I wanted a crossbreed I'd probably head to the shelter. If you want a purpose bred dog find a good breeder and be prepared to pay. Puppies cost a LOT to raise.
We are actually lucky that our purebred dogs were just given to us by our relatives when they seem to get tired of taking care of them. So far we have had 3 Labradors, 1 Cocker Spaniel, 1 Jack Russell, and our latest addition to the family, a German Shepherd. I was told that he was bought for $230 online, then my uncle just gave him to us after taking care of him for more than a year.
Puppies of pure breed are also very costly where I'm from and just like @sthrngypsy mentioned - they are very costly to raise as well. I use to have a pure breed puppy (Siberian Husky) that was given to me by my aunt who breed dogs as a hobby. But I have to give it away after a couple of months because I can't handle the cost of taking care of it (regular vaccines, dog food, dog vitamins, vet fees, etc..). I was also about to gave birth then so having to care care of an "expensive" dog will really hurt my budget. Anyway, the price of a puppy normally depends on the kind of breed. Where I'm from, a pure breed puppy can cost to as low as $200 to as high as $1,000 (sometimes even higher).
Yes, people are taking advantage of the whole "designer dog" thing. Put two cute or butchy dogs together, give it a unique name and people run to you with their money. It's ridiculous. My animals were all free. All of my cats were abandoned either by their owners in boxes on the side of the highway or by their own parents because they were sick and weak. I got my dog from an ad online. Her owner was abusive and she was not a cute or young dog so nobody wanted her. I don't pay for animals.. I take the ones that need it the most and they usually aren't in a shelter already and I refuse to pay for pet store pets.
We paid the grand, whopping total of $0 for our dog. See, before we moved from our old neighborhood, our neighbor's dogs had puppies. And they literally just were giving them away. So they kindly gave us one and that was the end of that. To this day I debate if we should have taken two. But when I see the mess this 1 makes (now 4 years later) I'm very happy we only took one.
She was advertised for $200 on eBay, but it didn't take much to convince the lady to lower it to $100. She's a mixed breed, Jack Russell along with some breed of hound not even the breeders knew. Anyways she's a good dog, but since she was the runt of the litter she certainly has her quirks.
