Show quality dogs should be $5000 to $14000.  If it is a “champion” the price should be over $25,000.  The Obama aspect should make this breed a collectible.

The maintenance of this breed is a substantive cost. They must be groomed as puppies every 4 weeks, and as adults every 7 weeks.  This costs $89 up per visit.

They require high protein food such as frozen raw meat patties. My dog can't be bribed with treats trained with treats], in fact I haven’t met any PWD’s that are food crazy. But that just means you need superior food. I recently gave Goji a can of Evanger’s dog food. It is high quality, human grade meat, and it’s even Kosher? Yet Goji rejected it, I don’t know what he was thinking. Yes he adores dried Kangaroo meat. Now that’s high-priced food, about $35/pound. He also likes dried bison.

A trip to PetSmart can easily cost $100. I listed a typical shopping trip for Portugese Water Dog in another post. They don’t like normal tennis balls much, they like fancy multi colored PetSmart tennis balls (recommended). They like high quality treats such as dried liver wrapped in bacon, “blue” biscuits, and anything liver. If you present to them too much protein they get little wild|hyperactive], if too little they get obviously too sleepy, 20% protein content is best.

Since this breed is designed to be a part of the crew of a fishing boat, he needs constant human companionship. As such, it is not good to leave him for more than 3 or 4 hours. And that doesn’t mean somebody can show up for ten minutes and leave, it means they must be around humans pretty much all the time. Also, they want to be around other dogs, and preferably other PWD’s. So what does this mean about cost? It means  play-dates with other Portugus Water Dogs, and lacking that constant trips to dog parks, walks, runs, outings, adventures, play, swimming, fetching, fighting, and mouthing. The cost part comes in Doggie Day Care. They play so hard at Day Care that the bonus is he’s exhausted at night, and slower the next day. Figure $20 to $28/day.

Goji has been very healthy, but the vet maintenance should cost at least $300/year.

Here’s an update. We have recently learnged that a trained portuguese water dog, chocolate brown, sold for $7000. This was not a puppy but an adult male. 12-10-2009