I was not prepared for Dexter.
I say that with complete love and zero regret. Dexter is the dog of my life — the one who chose me on his first day home and has never once reconsidered that decision. He is 115 pounds of pure devotion, and I would not trade a single destroyed bed or snapped leash for anything. But if I could go back to January 2020 and hand myself a list of things to know before a nine-week-old Pit Bull puppy with dinner-plate paws arrived in my house, I would do it without hesitation.
This is that list. For anyone considering a large breed dog, currently living with one, or trying to figure out why everything is harder and more expensive than they expected — this is what I wish someone had told me.
They Grow Faster Than You Think, and Then They Stop Being Puppies Immediately
Dexter at nine weeks was small enough to carry in one arm. Dexter at six months was 60 pounds and had the coordination of a very enthusiastic shopping cart. Dexter at one year was close to his adult size and had the energy of a dog who had been saving it up his entire life.
The puppy phase with a large breed dog is both shorter and more intense than most people expect. Shorter because they reach physical maturity faster than their emotional maturity catches up — you end up with a dog that is adult-sized but still very much a puppy in terms of impulse control, attention span, and enthusiasm for destruction. More intense because the destruction scales with the size. A Chihuahua puppy chewing a shoe is an inconvenience. A Pit Bull puppy chewing a shoe is a shoe that no longer exists.
What I wish I had known: the window for foundational training is the same for large breeds as for small ones, but the consequences of missing it are much larger. A 10-pound dog that never learned leash manners is annoying. A 115-pound dog that never learned leash manners is a genuine physical challenge. Start training early, be consistent, and do not assume that the puppy phase will last long enough to get to it later. It will not.
The Food Costs Are Real, and They Are Ongoing
I knew large dogs ate more than small dogs. I did not fully appreciate what that meant in practice until I was buying 40-pound bags of food every three weeks and doing the math on what that added up to annually.
Large breed dogs also have specific nutritional needs that differ from small breeds — particularly around calcium and phosphorus ratios during growth, which affect bone and joint development. Large breed puppy food is formulated differently from standard puppy food for this reason, and the difference matters. Feeding a large breed puppy standard puppy food can contribute to the kind of rapid growth that stresses developing joints.
What I wish I had known: budget for food as a fixed, significant monthly expense from the beginning. Do not underestimate it, and do not cut corners on quality during the growth phase. The joint problems that develop from inadequate nutrition during puppyhood are expensive to treat and impossible to fully reverse.
Joint Health Is a Lifelong Project, Not a Senior Dog Problem
This is the one I feel most strongly about, because it is the one that most large breed owners discover too late.
Large breed dogs are disproportionately affected by joint problems — hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia, arthritis, and other conditions that are partly genetic and partly the result of how the dog is raised and cared for during their growth years. The decisions you make when your large breed dog is a puppy and a young adult have a direct impact on their joint health at seven, eight, nine years old.
Those decisions include: what you feed them, how much you exercise them and on what surfaces, what they sleep on, and how much you allow them to jump on and off furniture and in and out of vehicles during the growth phase. High-impact activities on hard surfaces during the period when growth plates are still open can cause damage that shows up years later. Sleeping on inadequate support for years creates cumulative wear that accelerates the joint deterioration that comes with age.
Dexter has been on orthopedic foam since he was two years old. Not because he showed any signs of joint problems at two — he did not — but because Angelo and I understood by then that prevention is always easier than treatment. His bed is one of the most important things we buy for him. We replace it when the foam begins to show compression, and we treat that replacement as a health expense, not a luxury.
What I wish I had known: start thinking about joint health on day one. Feed appropriately for a large breed. Limit high-impact activities during the growth phase. Get them on a quality orthopedic bed early. These are not expensive interventions. They are inexpensive preventions.
The Gear Costs More, Wears Out Faster, and Matters More
Everything Dexter uses costs more than the equivalent for a small dog. His harnesses cost more because they require more material and heavier hardware. His leashes cost more because they need to be built to withstand real force. His beds cost more because they need to be large enough and dense enough to actually support his weight.
And everything wears out faster. Not because large breed gear is lower quality — it is not, or at least it should not be — but because the forces involved are simply greater. A leash that would last five years on a 20-pound dog may last two years on a 115-pound dog who pulls. A bed that would hold its shape for three years under a small dog may need replacing in eighteen months under a large one.
The temptation is to buy cheaper gear to offset the higher cost. This is the wrong instinct. Cheap gear on a large dog fails faster and fails more dangerously than cheap gear on a small dog. A plastic clip that fails on a 15-pound dog is an inconvenience. A plastic clip that fails on a 115-pound dog near traffic is a catastrophe. The investment in quality hardware, durable materials, and proper construction is not optional for large breed owners — it is the baseline.
What I wish I had known: budget for gear the same way you budget for food. It is a recurring expense, not a one-time purchase. And buy quality from the beginning, because the cost of replacing cheap gear repeatedly exceeds the cost of buying good gear once.
They Take Up More Space Than You Planned For
This sounds obvious. It is not, until you are living it.
Dexter does not fit in the corner. He does not tuck neatly under a table or curl into a small space when he wants to be near you. He is present in a room in a way that a small dog simply is not — physically, audibly, and in terms of the space he requires to exist comfortably.
His bed takes up a significant portion of our living room floor. His water bowl is the size of a salad bowl. When he stretches out on the couch — which he does, because we made the mistake of allowing it once and there is no going back — there is room for approximately one human alongside him, and that human must be comfortable with being pressed against the armrest.
What I wish I had known: think about space before you commit. Not just whether you have a yard, but whether your living space can accommodate a dog that will take up as much room as a piece of furniture. Large breed dogs are not apartment-incompatible — Dexter has lived in spaces of various sizes and adapted to all of them — but they require intentional space planning in a way that small dogs do not.
The Veterinary Costs Are Higher, Across the Board
Medications are dosed by weight. Anesthesia is dosed by weight. Boarding is priced by size. Grooming is priced by size. Every veterinary procedure that involves any kind of drug or sedation costs more for a large dog than a small one, simply because more of everything is required.
Routine care — annual exams, vaccinations, flea and tick prevention, heartworm prevention — is more expensive for large breeds. Emergency care is significantly more expensive. Orthopedic surgery, which large breeds are more likely to need, is among the most expensive veterinary procedures available.
What I wish I had known: get pet insurance before you need it. The monthly premium for a large breed dog is higher than for a small one, but it is a fraction of the cost of a single orthopedic surgery. We got insurance for Dexter early, and it has given us peace of mind that we would not trade for anything.
They Are Worth Every Bit of It
I have spent this entire post cataloguing the things that are harder, more expensive, and more demanding about large breed dogs. I want to be clear that none of it — not a single item on this list — has made me regret Dexter for a single moment.
Large breed dogs give you something that is difficult to describe to someone who has not experienced it. The weight of a 115-pound dog leaning against your legs. The sound of a tail that can clear a coffee table wagging because you walked into the room. The specific quality of being chosen by a dog that big — of having an animal that could knock you over choosing instead to be gentle, to be careful, to be yours.
Dexter is the reason We Wagging Tails exists in the form it does. His needs shaped our standards. His destruction refined our product criteria. His love — uncomplicated, enormous, and completely reliable — is the reason we care so much about getting the gear right for dogs like him.
Know what you are getting into. Prepare properly. Buy quality gear. Invest in joint health from the beginning. And then enjoy every enormous, expensive, wonderful pound of it.