The cost of keeping pets

Jeremy Clarkson knows something about the hidden costs of keeping pets:

As Mr Darling and Mr Brown continue to ruin the economy, people are having to ponder on what they can no longer afford. And many, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Animals, have decided the family pet must go. Apparently 30 animals a day are being abandoned at the moment. Almost 60% up on last year. [. . .]

There is no doubt that some pets are extremely expensive to run. My labradoodle requires a professional shampoo and blow-dry after every rain shower. My golden lab is kept alive with nothing but cash. And the electricity bill for the fox-zapping fence that rings my chickens’ enclosure means that every egg they produce costs roughly £1m.

And then we get to the horses. I have spoken to my wife about turning them into glue but she maintains they are not luxury items at all, and that the only reason she burns the various equine bills is because they are too trivial and small to file away and keep.

Hmmm. They have sweet itch constantly and as a result are always draped in yashmaks that must cost £800,000 each. Plus they need new shoes every two days, and a visit from the psychiatrist every time they see a paper bag in a hedge. And that’s before we get to the fact that their absolute favourite food is the wooden post-and-rail fence that keeps them in the paddock. In a single night, they can eat about 500 yards of it. And fencing is unbelievably expensive to replace.

To stop them doing this, I have painted the new sections with a virulent chilli oil, but it turns out that what they like even more than wooden fencing is wooden fencing smothered in chillies.

I would estimate that the cost of keeping the horses where they belong, preventing Brer Fox from eating the hens, running a lab to hatch the eggs, blow-drying the dogs and retrieving the sheep that ramblers like to chase into the sea at my holiday cottage is about £4 billion a year. I definitely spend more of my earnings on animals than on my cars. Far more.