When we got our Labrador Retriever a little over a year ago I knew we’d have some extra expenses, but I guess I didn’t take into account just how much extra having a dog costs.

The first few months were the most expensive as we bought a crate to keep her in at night, got a dog bed to use inside the crate, experimented with a few different types of food (she was sick when we got her too so we had extra medical expenses too), puppy training classes and we also went through several dog toys as we tried to find ones that wouldn’t be destroyed within minutes! We’ve also tried several different leashes and harnesses in our effort to get her not to pull so much when we take her out on walks.

I guess that’s what happens when you are a first time dog owner, eh?

These days The biggest expense in relation to keeping Midnight is her food and toys. She obviously needs food and we feed her with a higher grade dog food – no chemicals, natural ingredients as we’ve found that’s the only kind that works well with her sensitive digestive system.

She also needs toys. Labs are high energy dogs that tend to be chewers. If we don’t provide her with something appropriate to chew on she’d chew the furniture. She’s tried that too, but luckily she hasn’t done too much damage! Yet!

Toys for power chewers (really durable hard toys) are not cheap and Midnight seems to go through her toys pretty fast. We bought her a power chewer bone (foot long nylabone) a month ago and she’s chewed it down to about three inches. So we just got her yet another one on the weekend.

I don’t mind buying her toys if it keeps her busy and keeps my furniture intact, but man, it’s getting expensive! I think I’m going to watch for a sale on durable dog toys and when I see some on sale I’ll buy two or three at a time. That should save us money and keep her occupied!

I was just looking on Buy.com and I found this Ruff Wear Turnip dog toy. It’s a large rubber, turnip shaped toy. It has a hole in it that you could stuff with dog treats (great way to keep dogs happy and occupied for a while), plus the toy bounces like a ball so we could play fetch with her.

I don’t know if it would be all that durable if she were to lie down and start chewing on it, although I think it would last longer than some of the toys we’ve bought her in the past! This toy would probably be best if we were actively playing with her with the turnip toy.

For those of you with dogs, especially large breed dogs … did you find it a little more expensive than you thought it would be after you got your dog? What kind of toys do you buy your dog (especially dogs that are chewers)? I’m just looking for new ideas to keep her occupied and of course anything that’s inexpensive or that might save us some money would be much appreciated.