[Seguinite]

One of our Cavaliers got 'stuck' under the front door of the diswasher trying to rescue a kibble morsel. Very sharp edge there (I had no idea). After hours on a weekend, so really no choice but the emergency vet. It was several hundred dollars to stitch his ear up, and likely double (or more) what we would've paid the regular doc.

What really pisses me off is the 'regular' vet that will charge standing customers an 'emergency' fee for something that happens during regular buisness hours because 'you didn't have an appointment'. If I have no relationship with that vet, okay... i get it. But if you're my guy and taking care of my six dogs, that extra 'emergency' fee really puts me off. Especially when there's nobody else there.

[Coldjensens]

You have to simply decide on a cut off point where you are not going to spend an insane amount of money - probably for nothing.



We went through this with a much beloved dog a few years ago. He got real lethargic and started throwing up water whenever he drank it. We took him to the vet and after a few thousand dollars worth of testing, they said his organs were shutting down but they did not know why. They admitted him and use equipment to keep him alive while they did more testing for three days. They found no answers and wanted to send him to a clinic fifty miles away that had more advanced equipment for more testing. We were already about $4000 in debt for the initial testing that had found nothing. The place they wanted to send him woudl cost $1500 a day plus $5000 for the testing, plus whatever it would cost for treatment, if they found something that was treatable. There were three or four causes of his condition that woudl be treatable and about 20 that were not treatable. It was sad, but we brought him home for a day or tow to say goodbye and then put him to sleep. It took years to pay off the vet bill the way it was. (The vet care credit company charges insane interest).



While we love our pets almost like children, they are not children. They are animals. There is a modern trend to person-ize our pets and cal them our fur babies. This gets people to spend inordinate amounts of money on them when they are healthy and when they are ill - people empty their life savings, go into debt they cannot pay off, borrow from friends and family, set up go fund me. Anything they can do in a desperate ploy to force a pet into a few extra months or years of life, often months or years of painful suffering. Pets sicken and die. It stinks but it is how things are. Throwing crazy amounts of money at them is not helping them. In any even veterinary science is not all that advanced anyway. I know family after family who threw thousands upon thousands into care and testing for a sick pet only to have it die anyway. IN some cases the vet was able to keep the pet alive for a few extra months. This has happened to us three times. I am never doing this again. If a pet gets sick and the vet cannot tell us what the issue is then the pet comes home and either gets better or doesn't. If it is in pain, then we will put it down if it does not get well in a reasonable time. They are wonderful and we love them dearly, but they are not people. Their natural lifespan is relatively short and they frequently die of mysterious causes that a vet cannot discern in large part because the pet cannot tell the vet what hurts when what they have eaten recently, what may have bitten them or injuries they may have incurred. Without information and without decades of research costing billions of dollars vets cannot do what doctors can, no matter how many thouusands you spend.

[terracore]

Animals are property. I know we get emotional bonds to them but at the end of the day we don't know what their wishes are, we don't know how much pain they are in, and we can only make educated guesses on their emotional states. My wife kept a cat alive long beyond it's years with daily medical procedures I would never want for myself.

Throwing the kitchen sink and one's life savings at a vet to save a dying animal is to make the person feel better, not the animal.

We pay to treat things that can be cured or treated: injuries, infections, etc. If it can't (cancer, dementia, whatever) then we'll keep the animal as comfortable as possible until it dies or euthanasia is the best outcome.

We have one dog I'm particularly bonded to and it's easy to say I'd mortgage the house to save him. But it depends on what kind of life he would have. If the vet said, "$10k and he'll be the same as before" then sure. If the vet said "$10k and he might live another year", what kind of life is it going to be? Unless his quality of life is excellent I'm not going to give him a life sentence of uncomfortable medical procedures and being unable to do all of the things that make him happy. All animals including humans get old and/or sick and die. I'm not going to anthropomorphize my lifespan onto theirs and make them suffer.

[staystill]

I opened a checking account just for pets before I adopted them. Then at 6 months old my boy got really sick and he kept having seizures. He cost me about $6,000 or more and I blame it on the Don Azlett chain link mat that had petroleum in it. I knew it wasn't right and the smell was horrible like old dirty burnt rubber. He kept rubbing his face all over it. I think it caused a neurological damage due to his ihnaling the strong sell, fumes. My other cat wouldn't go near it. Then finally he got better and I had them both for years until he became around 12 yrs old. Never give them to many dry treats and always feed them quality food, canned food it will save you a boat load of money and stress. Refrigerate and leave it out for them when it's room temp they will eat. Leave toys out all night for play and plenty of cold wet food to eat after playing.

I always just paid off what I could then discovered like some here did Care Credit. Get the best deal possible and if the vet or hospital won't allow a year to pay off then tell them you will go somewhere else. I did they learned their lesson and tried to get me back. Nope not budging. I tried Vet Clinics to save money which helped. Honestly I wish I had fed them better quality food It would have helped and I wish I never purchased any mats online that usually get changed out every fall or spring again. After that I made sure I smelled and washed everything I brought into my home. I pity anyone who purchased the same thing and had a baby crawling around on one. I agree with you Terracore. Also so many times people have no clue their pet is sick, especially cats, I can tell just by how the cat puts their head down and the way they lay down. Also people often give treats that are not good for their pet and it causes them to have severe bowel problems as they age. Stop with the tuna flavored supermarket food! They age faster and so does their pain it is much worse for them because they age so fast.

So bottom line take better care of them, get yearly check ups. Care Credit helped me so much.