What does it cost to spay a dog in your area?

[bluemoonluck]

I recently got a rescue bitch spayed, and it cost me $314 out of pocket for her spay. Of course the clinics in this area now apparently mandate the pre-anesthetic bloodwork, which was $90 of that total, that I used to be able to opt out of Since I only charged a $200 adoption fee for her, and I had to pay $170 on top of the spay charges to get her heartworm tested/vaccines updated/etc, plus I drove 8 hours round trip on my gas $ to meet the adopters.... I'm always willing to do rescue for my breed, but I'd sure like a lower-cost spay option in this area!

And yes, we have a low-cost spay neuter clinic in the area, but in the 3 or 4 months I called them to try to get an appointment set up, they NEVER had a single opening for a female dog over 30 pounds . If they ever have one, they'll do the spay for my 35-pound dogs for $80....but that doesn't help me any since it seems their focus is on neutering male cats and dogs, with occasional openings for spaying female cats, rare openings for dogs under 30 pounds, and never any openings for "large" dogs over 30 pounds.

I've got a retired bitch right now that I need to get spayed that I've been trying to get in to the low-cost clinic without any success. But the whole thing has me wondering if what I'm being charged in this area is in line with what people around the country are charging for spays, or if it's just the typical Northern VA inflated pricing. I know I pay almost 50% more at my repro vet here in VA than I did at my repro vet in Utah , so maybe that's why I got my last retired bitch spayed in Utah for less than $150 when it costs over $300 here.....

So chime in! How much does it cost in your area to spay a female dog? How are the low-cost spay/neuter clinics run? I'm curious........

[MJsLady]

When I had Katie in it cost me...well it would have been $90 for the spay and shots.
I had the paws voucher though ($50) the spay alone would have been $90 if I had not had that.

[wendle]

It ranges quite a bit around here. It cost me 130.00 for my lgd when she was about 80 lbs. No blood work was done. Another local vet charges 120.00 for a 40lb dog with the option of blood work at a higher cost. Still another vet charges 400.00 for a 40 lb. dog with mandatory bloodwork. The local humane society charges 75.00 for a spay whether it is a 7 lb dog or 40 lb dog. Sometimes, at least around here they also offer coupons. A couple years ago I was able to get 50.00 off each spay, making it only 25.00 each.

[beaglady]

Here in central PA, prices are about the same as you paid. My most recent spay was a few months ago, and cost $225, but my vet only requires pre-op bloodwork for older dogs, so that wasn't included. IIRC the bloodwork runs around $80.

[Ravenlost]

Costs about $130 here. Only low cost spay/neuter available is for low income folks that our shelter hosts about once a month.

[Joshie]

Around here the cost varies widely. Our in-town vet charges about two hundred more than our horse vet. The in town vet makes you sign a waiver refusing the pre-OP bloodwork. The country one doesn't make a big deal of it.

I would suggest looking for a very small town or rural vet practice. Both of the practices we use are great. We take Rebel the service dog to our town vet because he has always treated him. He has let us keep a balance. I am not exactly sure what we would do if he needed more surgery as the rural practice is so much less expensive. We will probably move to an easier to care for place when DD graduates but will most likely drive the hour it'd take from town to see the rural vet because the prices are so much lower.

[suzyhomemaker09]

In my area we have a newer low cost spay/neuter clinic....

prices are...

PRICE LIST
SPAY/NEUTER SURGERY
$35 Male Cats
$45 Female Cats
$25 Feral Cats (read more here)
Male Dogs:
$55 Under 40 lbs
$65 40-79 lbs
$85 80-99 lbs
$100 100+ lbs
Female Dogs:
$65 Under 40 lbs
$75 40-79 lbs
$95 80-99 lbs
$110 100+ lbs

the place that was previously the low cost spay and neuter clinic had such insane income guidelines....< $1k a month income to qualify...
Personally I feel that a person living on that little could barely afford to feed an animal ...but I digress.

I've not had any issue getting any appointment to this point...have worked through them on several occasions.

[bluemoonluck]

Thanks for the feedback! Our low-cost spay/neuter clinic doesn't have any restrictions on income, which is good..... of course they're obviously unable to keep up with the volume of requests, given that they have such limited appointments.

The clinic I used for the rescue bitch is the cheapest DECENT vet in our county, so I may have to look at taking a longer drive to the next county down. I don't even want to know what the more expensive clinics in our area charge

[Joshie]

Blue, our cheap vet is in the very rural county that borders ours. We live in the boonies 45 minutes from town, but we live in the only rural part of our county. If we didn't have horses we would never have discovered this vet practice. Do you know any people who have livestock? If so, they may be able Tom point you in the right direction. Horse people, in particular, can be pretty picky people.

[Belfrybat]

$75.00 here. But the Humane Society has a "$40 over 40" deal for several months each year where you can receive a voucher to get any dog over 40 lbs. spayed or neutered for $40.00. No income requirements.

[maggiemom]

When I adopted my GSD, Sophie ,in Dec -she was about 18 mos old. I got her from a county animal control shelter ( fairly high -kill ) Her adoption fee included heart worm testing , UTD on shots and her spay and micro -chip and was only $ 100.00 !. I live in S.C. about an hour from the beach..The area vets are really very good about helping with the cost of spay/neuters with shelter/rescues here -I give a lot of credit to the hard work on the part of the folks who work in theses places who have gone the extra mile and the vets all know it .

[Nicole Irene]

SPCA does all cats/dogs regardless of one's income. I want to say it was less than 75 for our female cocker spaniel.