Wait, doesn't your pet health insurance cover it? What's that you say, you don't have insurance? Bad pet owner!
Seriously, I'm beginning to think the whole medical system (animal and human) is just a big scam.
It's really not the medical practitioners, it's the pharmaceutical companies.
My vet is reasonable. His hourly rates are comparable to what I bill at as an Engineer. The costs that get you are anesthesia and special meds needed. Routine vaccines and the like are very economical.
Pet insurance makes a ton of sense if you own one or two pets. If you have a lot of pets the cost to insure will usually extend even emergency care in a year's worth of premiums.
The trick as a pet owner, parent, or anyone responsible for another's life is to have either insurance or savings to cover the worse (or even credit it that's the only option).
When my grandmother died of cancer, she had a little three-legged dwarf Golden Retriever. No one wanted her in the farming town she lived in (her three other large dogs were adopted very quickly). I went and got the dog. Six months later it was discovered it developed cancer of the spleen. The dog was about 10 but healthy. We found this cancer during just a routine annual XRay.
That surgery was not that bad, maybe $500-750. However; the cancer returned to her lung and as an older dog and a three-legged one without a spleen they prognosis for a better quality of life was low if she had her one lung removed. She also developed diabetes.
She lived two+ more years until the cancer progressed and began causing her breathing issues. Up until the last week, she probably didn't even know anything was wrong with her.
Between the custom diet, insulin, ultrasounds to monitor her cancer, etc over the course of two+ years probably cost nearly $10k.
The bottom line was I could afford it so I did, I would not expect someone to go without caring for themselves or their children to take care of an animal.
Life is sometimes unfair, however; at least our pet's get the option for Euthanasia. Many people would love that great blessing at times. Unfortunately too many pet owners elect Euthanasia as a quick way to a new pet.
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