What Abuja Rich Spend On Their Dogs

Posted by admin Headlines Sunday, June 12th, 2011

While a dog may rightly be called a man’s best friend, with what many dog owners have to spend on them, it is obviously a friendship oiled with heavy spending. NICK UDENTA writes
Many dog owners in Abuja buy them for security purposes. According a veterinary doctor and a practitioner in Wuse, Abuja, Dr. Bala Muhammed, about 90 per cent of people who own dogs in Abuja buy them for security purpose.

Although to the average man on the street, every dog can be used for security, experts like Commander P K Ayeni, who is in charge of the Private Guard Company Department (PGC), Nigerian Civil Defence and Security Corps (NCDSC) in Abuja, says that there are specific dogs that can be used for security.

Such species of dogs, he says, include Rottweiler, Doberman, Pit bull, Labrador, German shepherd and Alsatian. These, he points out, are the favourites for the Abuja well-to-do.
He, however, adds that some of these dogs can serve other purposes based on the training they are given when they are young.

But whether it is a Rottweiler, Doberman or German shepherd, acquiring these dogs doesn’t come cheap.

For instance, Mr. Chris Okwuosa, who works at the Central Bank of Nigeria and lives in Apo owns two dogs, which he says are imported from Russia.
According to him, he bought the dogs at N150, 000 each.

“The two dogs were bought in Russia through the internet at N300, 000 and that is not all I spent to acquire them. They were shipped through Lagos as puppies and I went there to collect them and conveyed them through the road to this place” he says.

Mr. Charles Ikoro, who owns a Rottweiler, a Doberman as well as an Alsatian in Gwarimpa, says, “None of these dogs can be bought with anything less than N200, 000. You can get a puppy Rottweiler at N180, 000.”

Another dog enthusiast, Mr. Ikechukwu Madu, a student of University of Abuja, says he takes care of her mother’s dogs; a Rottweiler and an Alsatian. According to him “a dog in Abuja here can cost anything.”

He explains, “It really depends on the bargaining power of the individual”. A buyer who has money and really needs a particular dog could buy it at N200, 000. That is how the market works but no dog here cost less than N50, 000.”

If you think acquiring dogs were expensive then you will probably be shocked to know that many dog owners spend even more to keep them.
According to Bala, feeding, medications and other sundry necessities make keeping dogs rather expensive.

An animal scientist and kennel supervisor with Kings Guards security at Wuye, Mr. Dominic Dawda, says that puppies should not take less than three square meals daily till they are six months which is considered the maturity age. He adds that after six months, a dog can eat twice daily or once. He notes that the meal must be nutritious enough so that the dog doesn’t get sick, pointing out that meals like dog pedigree, milk and cereals can be used for puppies.

Ikechukwu says that his puppy consumes one and half can of pedigree daily and that each can costs N300. He stresses that often he adds minced meat and milk to the pedigree.
He spends about N700 on his puppy daily just for feeding alone, he says.

Ikoro, however, has gone a little creative in providing affordable meals for his dogs.

He explains, “Most time I collect remnants from the restaurant in addition to the pedigree and other things I give to my dogs. I pay N5, 000 every month for the food remnants I collect from one of the restaurants around. People adopt measures that are okay for them”

An employee of Tantalizer in Wuse 2, reveals that they actually sell food remnants at the rate of N100 per a kilogram.

Adding up his feeding costs, Ikoro says he spends about N50, 000 on his puppy every two months. This, he adds, does not include the medication and other welfare.

Even though the number of times a dog feeds reduces to once a day when it gets to the maturity age that does not mean less cost. According to Bala dogs are carnivores and it is advisable to give them about 500gm of meat plus carbohydrates everyday. “Everything depend on what you want to use the dog for but as per security dogs, the amount of money you spend on the dog multiplies by two as the dog gets older because the quantity and quality of the food has to improve because security dogs are large-sized dogs so they feed heavily.

Pointing to a dog barking beside him, he explains, “This one barking there is a bulldog. As a puppy it consumed N700 but now it consumes about N1, 500 everyday on feeding alone. It eats double of what a German Shepherd will eat in a day”. He points out that there are some special meals called “science diet” prepared for sick dogs and that such meals may cost about N3000.

According to experts, dogs are prone to various diseases, ailments, and poison, some of which can affect humans. They are also susceptible to parasites such as fleas, ticks, and mites, as well as hookworm, tapeworm, roundworm, and heartworm.

Therefore, keeping a dog also entails spending on health care services, including vaccination and de-worming.
“I give our one-month-old puppy distemper vaccine once in a month for three weeks at the cost of N2, 000,” Ikechukwu says.

He also de-worms the puppy at the cost of N100 monthly.

Of course, he also regularly spends money on bath soaps, bath chemicals, shampoo, tick powder, to keep them in top shape.

Ikoro, on the other hand, says that apart from the vaccines which cost him a lot, his dogs can get cuts while fighting and he has to stitch the cut. The dog may also bite somebody “you know some people walk into your compound, ignoring the beware-of-dogs sign and before you know it the dog has bit the person” he said. He has spent as much as fifty thousand naira to treat a dog bite. According to him one bad side of dog is the bite because the dog can bite your relation and that can cost a relationship.

When it comes to housing, all dogs are not created equal. While some live in cages, others live kennels.

Speaking on dog accommodation, Bala says that everything depends on the owner, noting that housing a dog can be either expensive or cheap.
He cites the example of ongoing construction of a kennel somewhere in Asokoro, Abuja, expected to cost over N150, 000.
“Already they have spent over N100, 000 on the project. There is a sleeping bed and special plate for feeding and other things that will help the dog to relax in the kennel,” he adds.

Ikoro on the other hand prefers to convert his guard’s building into a dog ‘house’.

For Abuja dog owners and lovers, feeding is yet another money gulping avenue.

According to experts, dogs can digest a variety of foods, including vegetable and grains and does not have to depend solely on meat-protein meals.
In order not to spend so much on a dog’s feeding, Ikoro advises dog owners to train their dogs with nutritious but affordable meals from the outset.

“It is a very expensive thing to feed dogs well. Some of my friends say ‘my dog does not eat this; my dog does not eat that’. You start from the puppy stage to train your dog on what you want it to eat. Whatever your dogs eat, whether garri, bread or yam as a puppy is what it is going to eat at the adult stage,” he points out.

To reduce cost, he suggests that they can buy milk in bags and mix them with a cereal called acha which is grown in the northern part of the country and feed their puppies with that.
But Bala warns that 50 per cent of dog’s feeding must be meat.

“Dogs are carnivorous animal, so they need meat to remain very healthy,” he explains.

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