Rob, I bet the vet & food bills are pretty low!! I read somewhere that the "average" cost to own dog over it's lifetime is around 16 thousand bucks. There's an animal emergency center near us, it's basically a level one trauma center for pets. We had to bring one of our guys in once and it was just heartbreaking to see how many people could simply not afford the $$ of the treatments and had to either walk away or have their pets put down. I always swore that if I ever came into big bucks (lotto, etc.) that I would sponsor a fund to spare people this horrible choice!!
Yes, it can cost a lot of money. Our last dog had two separate cancer ops. with each consisting of the removal of a complete side of mammary glands. She survived for quite a while, between ops, but eventually it spread elsewhere and nothing could be done. She died across my lap on the kitchen floor, the vet telling me, as she withdrew the syringe, that tears are not unusual. We never had another animal, not because of cost but because of heartbreak. Twice is more than enough.
But on the cost aspect, yes, not only vet fees, but also kennels when, as in our case, business travel still meant several weeks at a time away from base several times a year.
But the love of a large dog is something special.