Is having a dog a good idea?

[dayknight19]

Hi!
Would love some advice.
We live in a flat (with a garden - but can’t be accessed directly - just for the context). Never owned a dog before but both my DH and me had a cat growing up.
We have one DC and one family member living close by and feel our child would benefit from having a dog. Feel a bit sorry for her as I grew up with a very large family of cousins/aunts/uncles nearby.
We love the King Charles Cavalier breed!
My DH WFH currently and I am unemployed now but the aim is to get a full time job in the future so we both might not be around the house a lot in the future.
Basically, is this a silly idea? Is it practical, expensive? Is it fair to a poor dog if we are not at home a lot in the future? How about when we go away on holidays? What else should we think about?
Thank you!

It's not fair if you will be going to work all day. A king Charles is anywhere between 1.5k to £3k to buy before you consider health insurance, food, vets, dog walker, kennels.

No it's not fair to the dog if you're out of the home a lot and getting one as a family substitute for your DC isn't a particularly good reason.

Do you actually want a dog? They're quite hard work, they need training, love, care, physical and mental exercise. You'd have to take it to the garden every couple of hours for it to toilet. You'd have to pay for kennels for it if you went away

No it's not fair to go out and leave a dog for hours but there are multiple options to get around that, most of which are expensive. Only get a dog if you personally really want one (not for your child) and are prepared for all the hard work as chances are it will fall to you. Re holidays if family can't take them there are boarders (again expensive) King Charles spaniels are lovely but hard to get hold of so very pricey and frequently come with a whole host of health issues. It might be wise to look outside of that breed. Personally our pup really completes our family but personally I wanted her and knew I'd be the one doing everything.

And CKCS have a lot of potential health problems so could be expensive at the vet

It's a horrible idea to get a dog in a flat without direct access to a garden who gets used to you being home all of the time and then you leave it for a full time job.

Lots of people who work full time and have dogs. You’d be there for the crucial puppy time. I don’t think they can be left much before 6 months.

There are dog walkers, doggy day care etc. But doggy day care costs money and isn’t suitable every day.

We manage because we have family near by who are retired and have the dog every day.

The purchase price is the least of it. You need good pet insurance, especially for a breed like Cavaliers which have terrible health problems. Even if you don’t have a breed prone to poor health, they can get into accidents or eat toxic things. I had a dog who ended up in a specialist hospital for over a week - we still don’t know what was wrong with him, but the treatment, nursing and numerous scans resulted in a bill for £9k. Luckily we had excellent insurance, but that didn’t come cheap either (£78 a month in his latter years).

So, yes, it can be bloody expensive! And you’ll need a dog walker if you’re out all day.

I don’t actually think the flat is an insurmountable problem. But you’ll need to be prepared to go outside with the dog last thing at night and first thing in the morning whatever the weather.

And people who live in flats have dogs too.

Cavaliers have been bred for centuries to be lapdogs- they really want a lot of company and I wouldn't leave them alone for more than 2-3 hours per day. Like all dogs they need walked in all weathers. Mine like 2-4 hours of walks a day. I've had the breed for decades and due to terrible breeding practices over the last 20 years or so, they are not as healthy as they used be. Many will have heart failure at a young age, and you should also read up on syringomyelia. There are a handful of breeders in the UK that are doing full health tests (including MRI, not just the basic tests) and they have long waiting lists. Many ethical breeders were sensible during lockdown and not breeding, because the usual vet services etc were unavailable and it wasn't a good time to get a puppy (puppy gets used to everyone being at home, little opportunity for socialisation...) If you do decide to get a dog please look into it carefully as there are many, many puppy farmers hiding in plain sight.

www.cavalierhealth.org/

Also the flat isn't necessarily a problem. Many dogs don't like to use their own garden as a toilet anyway. If you really enjoy walking and don't mind the rain then maybe a service like borrow my doggy might be a good way of testing the idea of dog ownership.

I have a cavalier cross, he's my best mate and I wouldn't be without him. He genuinely got me through lockdown. I also have an only child. He completes our family. I work full time and am a single parent. It can work. We've had him nearly 4 years. He was my first dog.

BUT - I have a house with a decent garden, work from home (and did often before lockdown) and my hours are really flexible so I can come home and let him out. I earn good money and can afford decent insurance, just this year he cost me £700 at the vets which I had to pay out before the insurance paid me back. Could you do that? He was a pain in the arse to housetrain and I walk him in the rain and freezing cold.

In your situation a cat or pair of cats would be a better idea than a dog. Kittens do well in pairs so you could look into that. Some cat breeds are very doglike, fun and playful - Burmese and Tonkinese are two that spring to mind if you wanted a pedigree cat.

Dogs are a massive, lifelong tie and commitment. Small puppies can toilet every 30-60 minutes which isn't easy to manage if you don't have easy access to get them outside. Longer term you can't leave a dog alone all day - some people do but it really isn't fair to the dog - so you would need to look at dog walkers, daycare or family to look after them. For holidays you'd need to arrange to have them looked after, or holiday in the UK or somewhere in Europe you can take them if you arrange a pet passport. Cavaliers are gorgeous but suffer from a lot of health issues as a breed so if you were to get a dog at some stage it's vital to find an extremely reputable breeder via the breed club and not just via Google. The parent dogs must be fully health tested and the breeder able to show and discuss health results with you - I can't stress enough how important this is. You'd likely have to wait quite some time for a puppy from a reputable breeder, anything up to a year or more. Puppies available 'right now' are not likely to be well bred or from health tested parents, they could well be puppy farm stock.

More information here (click on the Cavalier Health tab on the left): www.thecavalierclub.co.uk/start.html

I do think in your current situation a cat or cats would be a much better idea though.

It depends on whether there is someone around for the dog during the daytime (unless you can take the dog to work with you or to pay for doggy daycare). Dogs have a poor quality of life left alone all day.

Thank you everyone.
I think we ought to wait a few years once one of us is wfh all the time and are there for the dog. It wouldn’t be fair on it to be left alone all day long.