I will answer the question of how much does it costs to adopt a golden retriever? But first, I would love to tell this story before.
Happy is my first rescue dog from a commercial puppy mill. She was 8 weeks old when I got her. I was told that puppy mill dogs are born and raised in an impoverished environment and endure severe stress throughout their life at the mill. So her psychological functioning is not like that of a normally raised pet dog. When Happy arrived home she was completely sick (puppy strangles, ear infections, worms). She was struggling.
Her rehabilitation and recovery was fast as GRIN provided support and medications and my family and I opened our arms and hearts to this little survivor. She is now 9 months and she is starting to desire more to be pet and hugged and also making longer eye contact. She is the nervous type that’s for sure, but she can also focus on training and discovering the world as a normal pet. She completed a Puppy class and she’s now training in obedience. I am so proud of her. She’s doing really well. On my part, I have to be so much more calm, patient and understanding with her than any of my previous dogs. Undertaking this journey took a lot of my energy, but now, looking back I see that it is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.
Do you know how much it costs to adopt a golden retriever?
The most expensive option is to buy a dog at a quality breeder. AKC.org for an example has a full database of breeders by states. It’s going to be a little bit more money but you will have the insurance of having four or five generations of checkable health and behavioral clearances. You can go meet the breeder and their dogs. This is what we did with our dog, Zaku, and we loved the experience.
You can also buy a cheaper dog in a puppy mill. Please know that in the long haul the people who buy those puppies are encouraging a terrible industry. These mills have incidents of animal cruelty. Please don’t buy from an unknown source, it’s a no go.
The other option that I propose here is to adopt a dog from a rescue organization. Full disclosure, I paid 500$ for a beautiful red golden retriever puppy (that usually cost around 3000$). The Golden Rescue organization (GRIN) also paid for the spaying. They contacted me for multiple interviews so I would be ready to adopt one of their dogs. It is a serious process, and we are grateful for them. They have a lots of beautiful golden retrievers, go to there web site to find out.
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