My boyfriend who doesn't like dogs, wants a pug.

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the original post reminds of a couple I know.

The husband runs a chimney company. Some contractor he worked with: a burly dude with a workshirt, always had a little chihuahua pup riding around with him...sitting in his shirt pocket...just the right size to sit in shirt pocked with its face looking out. The husband would talk about it and say that it was "the cutest thing I ever saw! I WANT one of them."

So I wife got him a chihuahua. Turns out the husband was talking in hyperbole, and didnt REALLY want to own one. But they kept new dog anyway.

In other words, get a pet you have no intention of caring for and let it suffer to death if something's wrong?

If nature runs its course and a pet gets sick and dies that doesn’t mean you didn’t care for it. It just means you didn’t write a blank cheque to a vet to extend its life.

Lot of people have pets but not the means to spend thousands on vet bills, so, when they get old/sick, they may die.

What about when they are young and ill, but it's not going to kill them?
Do you just let them suffer and hope they'll die?

Sorry - not trying to be a stickler, but pet ownership is a huge responsibility.
It's even more of a commitment when your children depend on those animals.
Exponentially more difficult when they are ESA (emotional support), or licensed service animals.

I don't recommend being in a position of spending thousands either.
That's why pet insurance is a great option.
It's pretty cheap if you start the animal when it's a baby with no preexisting conditions.

A lot of poor people have cats as pets. If they get too sick, sometimes they die.

Quite a few homeless people have dogs as pets. I suppose they must sometimes kick it, too, but I bet most live quite a while and just have rather robust immune systems from outdoor living and such.

It isn’t a requirement to have a big insurance or vet budget to have a cat or dog. It’s maybe not financially responsible to have one at all if you’re struggling to pay for your own food & shelter etc, but, people do it.

Sometimes I see posts seeking discount vet services or payment plans etc. personally I wouldn’t want to commit to a pet if my $ situation couldn’t afford it, but, it’s also pretty damned classist to say only people with deep pockets should have a cat or a dog. Kinda like with kids, really. Some are born into poor families, others not, and each do the best they can.

Personal choices after weighing pros & cons I guess.

To be fair, my dog developed a freakish number of medical issues that most dogs wouldn't have, mostly related to allergies. None of it was evident when I got him but around the two year mark he started having a lot of horrible symptoms but we didn't know why. His suffering was pretty crazy and we didn't know what was going on. Enter blood tests and scans and the whole nine yards, just to find out if he should even be put down. The allergy testing alone was close to $2K.

One of my cats who's insured has a problem with her spleen that we didn't know about (or it didn't start) until she was around a year old, but that's covered on insurance. Her various tests, scans, and meds have been about $4K in the last year. Admittedly there's no way I would or could have paid that without insurance so I took advantage of what was available. Her prescription food is $70 bag and another $60 for 12 tiny cans, but even the food gets reimbursed to me on insurance the same way a medicine would because it's vet prescribed.

I’m lucky and have a vet that will let me charge.Took my son’s Aussie in to get her fixed and she almost bleed out because she had a tick disease. Ehrlichia.The vet had to keep her for several days because it would have been dangerous to bring her home around other dogs because of the incision.Vet was worried it might bleed if she was moving around or playing with other dogs.
I figured my bill would be huge, the spaying., antibiotics, four nights boarding.She didn’t charge me for boarding and the bill was under $300.
I save money by worming and giving shots my self.Luckily my dogs are heathy but they are getting older.

Well, I really like this comment, I would say they kind of remind me of goblins but gargoyles works to.

Hmm that is an idea, but also he has more work hours than me so chances are realistically if we get a pug I'd be doing a lot of the taking care of them and training while he is at work, I get off at noon so I could then go home and give the dog a walk and pay attention to it. But that is still 4 hours they'd be alone before I get home. But I also want a cat so I wonder if it would be possible to introduce the cat and pug to each other appropriately so they could make friends and then like the cat could keep it company when we're not home. I have read that a lot of cats don't see pug dogs as a threat but in that case I'd be a bit worried about the cat harming the pug if they don't get along. So it is a lot to think about.

But Idk maybe we could look into like seeing how it is to take care of one before we decide on it. Either way we wont make it a whim decision, like we want to make sure we're prepared before we jump into it. We could also maybe talk with my sister more about how it is taking care of a smoosh face dog and what sort of vet bills they have, since she has a french bulldog.

That's really unfair to goblins.

My teacher had a pug. They Fart and snore a lot.