We have always had three to five Bernese, plus two or more cats and two horses. I just went back thru 3 years of vet bills. The largest year was $1700.00 and the least was $1195.00. This included about $60.00 for horse shots each year and stud fee and board for our mare to the tune of $600.00 on the year we spent $1700.00. and the balance was on the dogs.
There were more than likely some other small expenses that were not dog related so I would say maybe $900.00 per year for our 4 dogs when we had no major illness with the dogs. Five years back our 5 year old stud dog was diagnosed with a Mast Cell Tumor on the roof of his mouth. He was taken to WSU Vet School and all options were discussed, from surgery with skin grafts, chemo and you name it , we talked about it but We knew there were more cancer cells that were floating around if you want to call it that. We opted to take him home, feed him what ever he wanted to eat and just love and make him as comfortable as we could. He gave us 6 months of happiness and we gave him love in return. Does this make us a person that does not care for the health of their Berner, I think not,, but we would not put him thru the pain and suffering he would have had just to give us a few months more with him. He meant more to us than that. His ashes are in a Urn buried in the back yard where he can watch me each day to make sure I'm doing the chores right. One thing to bear in mind is that no matter how healthy the parents, and grandparents are regarding, hips,elbows, eyes, heart and so on, nature can and does often throw a very hard curve ball that could cost one a lot of money health wise. Ray & Pat Burgett Eaglecap Bernese Talee,Lexi,,Bell, Shadow & Max www.goodbernerfood.com http://users.eoni.com/~eaglecap/ Draminski Ovulation Detector Rep
