[QUOTE=5;6443528]
Nope don’t have one or a lick of sense either.
Spent over 8K to save a 2K bird.
I’ll be paying the CCards I ran up on his vet bill for the next year or so.[/QUOTE]
I apparently don’t either! Don’t know how much I spent on chemo for my heart dog. Took me a while to pay the CCs too. Maybe some day I will add it up. Maybe not.
I have a limit but it depends on the situation. I have two pits, both rescues, that I paid nothing for but mean the world to me. They are the sweetest dogs that I have had more people come up to me and tell me that never knew pits could be so sweet. I never thought I was going to pay $400 for a growth removal on Marlas foot. But then again Marla is my world and my child. She goes everywhere with me. She protects me and lets me hold her when I cry.
Chevy is the same way. He is young and loves the world right now. His antics make me smile and when I am down he curls up next to me.
My dogs are really not worth much. I can go to every shelter in FL and find a pit, besides Miami,so they really have no value attached. But they are worth a ton to me. I dread the day I have to ask myself what is to much? It really depends.
Jingles for Zane!
I’m sitting here on the couch with a $5,000 cat.
The maintenance bills on our menagerie are though the roof each year.
I’m in the fortunate position of not having to worry about the costs to save a beloved pet. I guess I balance the expense against quality of life. When it’s time to go, it’s time to go. Having been raised on a ranch, I’m probably a little more pragmatic about this type of decision than most.
Last summer I spent about $1200 on Shadow’s cut foot over a six-week period. I was okay with that because once it got better, it wasn’t like he was going to have it happen again. For an end-of-life problem, like cancer, I wouldn’t treat. He’s an old dog, 12 1/2, so if he got injured badly enough to need major surgery (not just sewing up a foot), I would probably not go for the surgery, just because at his age and with his arthritis, his quality of life would be so badly affected.
I don’t have a limit (luckily) so long as the prognosis is good. I won’t, however, throw good money after bad if the prognosis is poor.
Yes, I have a pretty tight limit on my pets but I also have a vet who knows that and works some pretty amazing magic within that limit.
The problem with limits is complications. Example, surgery for my dog was about $800. We had decided $1,500 was a reasonable limit for a dog with a lot of known issues. Diagnostics before surgery a few hundred. But then she had complications and stayed at the ER clinic for 5 full days (where she became a big hit with the staff). There was no way on day two of that I would have gone in and said, “oh she’s stable but can’t leave yet…well pull the plug, I’m at my monetary limit.”
Then a day after we got her home, the wound dehised (sp?) and we wrapped 4x a day for over a month to the tune of about $150 a week in wrapping supplies/vet supplies. All in all I’m sure I was close to $3,000 and I know for a fact the main vet cut a lot out of our bill because she loved the dog and felt bad about the whole mess.
What is really interesting is I brought her to a kennel last weekend and the questionairre had a question about what is your $ limit if we can’t reach you. I said you have $1,000 per dog before you need permission, BUT no intestional/blockage surgeries for her. I could tell the kennel owner was really put off. I wanted to say, “if you don’t want to know don’t ask!” Older, incontinent dog with multiple health problems requiring daily meds and a propensity to try to self destruct by eating inappropriate things whole.
I was a bit put off too.
I have pet health insurance. With the costs of vet care today I don’t see how anyone can even consider keeping a pet without insurance. Any visit to the pet ER can rapidly run into the thousands, and even simple conditions can cost a lot to diagnosis and treat.
I do have limits- I wouldn’t put the pet through futile treatments, regardless of cost.
Insurance paid up over $10k for chemo for one of my dogs, no questions asked; the treatment was very successful and well-worth it. I am very glad I didn’t have to decline solely due to cost and could instead focus on the real issues- likelihood of side effects, likelihood of improving quality of life, etc.
[QUOTE=TrotTrotPumpkn;6444533]
What is really interesting is I brought her to a kennel last weekend and the questionairre had a question about what is your $ limit if we can’t reach you. I said you have $1,000 per dog before you need permission, BUT no intestional/blockage surgeries for her. I could tell the kennel owner was really put off. I wanted to say, “if you don’t want to know don’t ask!” Older, incontinent dog with multiple health problems requiring daily meds and a propensity to try to self destruct by eating inappropriate things whole.
I was a bit put off too.[/QUOTE]
I think that’s more than fair on your part. I work as an ER clinician. We have one 18 month old Dobie on our roster who now lives in a basket muzzle after three foreign body surgeries. We got him to vomit up the sock before it could obstruct him. DH and I own a repeat offender and at 13 with separation anxiety and no longer able to remember to pee outside, I don’t think we’d do a third surgery. Just not fair to her.
As someone who works in ER, I don’t want someone to jeopardize the rest of their financial stability on a pet. Average foreign body I work on averages $1800 to 2200. We completely get that a very good owner may not be able to swing this expense and we don’t think badly of them. What leaves us utterly pissed off though is people who complain about the price of a c-section or pyometra surgery. State funded low cost spay neuter is readily available. If you’ve allowed your dog to become pregnant, I expect you to be able to cough up the $15-$1700 for a c-section.
We don’t have a spending limit, BUT we do have a limit as to what we will subject our dogs to.
I do have a spending limit - there is a limit on how much of the family financial pie we can spend on our animals.
Re above - I do have instructions for my vet in case we are away. They include decisions made in cold blood about not having colic surgery (for the horses) and regarding how far to go for the really old dogs.
When something catastrophic happens to one of our animals it is all to easy to go overboard in our desperation, even if the prognosis is not good. We have a gew ‘cold blooded’ decisions made, so we do not have to make them in ‘hot blood’.
Well, mine is officially above $2800. Silly dog had a bleeding ulcer in his stomach, requiring blood and plasma transfusion. Well worth the money though, as its been less than a week of recovery and he is back to the bouncy jack he was prior to the suspected ulcer.
Prognosis was unknown, but thankfully he came out on the winning end and there is no current evidence of neoplasia!
I too have a limit on what I am willing to spend. It does depend upon though what is wrong and what is reasonable to fix it. however, the word reasonable varies and have yet not exceeded that term yet, 
I have decided recently to switch vets as my current clinic is increasing their costs and in order to get in for an appt for a sick animal, they want it to be on an emergency no matter what time of day or night. in order to get away from the emergency fee of $100, an appt would have to be set several days out. Anything less then 4-5 days out would be considered an emergency as they would have to “squeeze” you in. I thought the whole point of going to the vets was because you had a sick animal… The odd thing to add to this was every time I went, even on an emergency basis, I was the only customer in the clinc.
in any event, i am hoping my costs will go down considerably as now I wont have to pay for emergency care for every appt.
Hope this was somewhat on topic
My $2000+ Springer is lying on the bed with me. That’s what we spent on a knee repair (and an unrelated, subsequent mass removal surgery to check out a bunch of little lumps). And from these prices you all are quoting, I’d say we got off easy! There was absolutely no question that when Pup blew out her knee, we would have it fixed, even though we had no insurance and not much money. We did a Traditional repair and the vet let me pay over time.
I have met people who looked at me funny and said, “Oh, I’d NEVER spend that on a dog,” and others who said, “My dog has had both knees done and we went with the (2x the price) TPLO surgery, why didn’t you get that?”
I also spent $1,000 on a guinea pig back in the day, pre-children, when he was my only pet. I couldn’t do that anymore for a piggie (hope you aren’t listening, Barney). Our darling dog? Wish I could say “sky’s the limit,” but with our current finances a $5,000 surgery, for example, would not be happening. I guess I mostly listen and make decisions with my heart, but head has to be a factor. Heck, I cut corners on human health care thanks to our high-deductible insurance, so doing so with the dog doesn’t make me feel TOO bad!
[QUOTE=The Shadow;6444115]
I apparently don’t either![/QUOTE]
It gave me a hint of what a gambeling addiction is like God seemed to keep upping the odds.
I won this time… sort of… well at least I didn’t lose the bird (feisty as before) but I’ll be slaving for a year - eh karma will pay me back even if it doesn’t pay the bills.
[QUOTE=andylover;6445375]
I too have a limit on what I am willing to spend. It does depend upon though what is wrong and what is reasonable to fix it. however, the word reasonable varies and have yet not exceeded that term yet,
I have decided recently to switch vets as my current clinic is increasing their costs and in order to get in for an appt for a sick animal, they want it to be on an emergency no matter what time of day or night. in order to get away from the emergency fee of $100, an appt would have to be set several days out. Anything less then 4-5 days out would be considered an emergency as they would have to “squeeze” you in. I thought the whole point of going to the vets was because you had a sick animal… The odd thing to add to this was every time I went, even on an emergency basis, I was the only customer in the clinc.
in any event, i am hoping my costs will go down considerably as now I wont have to pay for emergency care for every appt.
Hope this was somewhat on topic :)[/QUOTE]
Hope the clinic learns their lesson. Our regular vet back in Baltimore was also an emergency clinic. Since we were a regular patient, we were never charged the emergency fee as long as we came in during normal business hours, which included nights and Sundays. Boy, do I miss them.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
I think it’s a case-by-case thing. If my current, otherwise healthy, very stable, content dog had an accident that required an expensive surgery, I’d spend whatever I had to save her.
My father’s 18 month old purebred (rescue) lab wound up with a congenital defect in his spine that caused extremely severe pain. His dog went from being his daily partner (went to work with him every day, was extremely active, swam daily, went for runs with him, etc) to being unable to get up from laying down without assistance. After several MRIs and consults with 2 different surgeons, the quote my father was given was $8k for surgery with an 8-10 week recovery period. He would need to be carried outside to relieve himself, would need to be crated 23 hours a day, and would need close monitoring during that time. Even then, the prognosis that he would live a comfortable life was about 30%. My dad really struggled with the decision, but decided to put his dog to sleep. This was in 2004, and he just recently came around to rescuing another dog. This time, a mixed breed.
My dad really struggled with the decision, but decided to put his dog to sleep. This was in 2004, and he just recently came around to rescuing another dog. This time, a mixed breed.
He made the right decision. I deal with back dogs all day long in referral surgery, as one of our major surgeries is the hemilaminectomy, and I would never have it done on a dog over 40ish pounds. The expressing, carrying around, pressure sores, urine scald, is something I am not willing to go through–EVEN after watching miracles and success stories, the failure rate and the PAIN it takes to get there, not worth it for me.
I try not to set limits because my dogs always exceed them! I’ve been to the local emergency hospital enough to know that $500 just gets you in the door. Anytime my dog blinks funny, I say to my dog, we are not going to the hospital tonight. Please, please.
I put my heart dog through chemo over 12 years ago. I had some extra cash in my account at the time and I tried not to add the numbers up. It was worth it.
I had foreign body surgery last year. I just couldn’t say no and it was the right decision.
I have had horses with soft tissue injuries. The old horse got excellent/primo, but cheap traditional rehab. The younger one got the special stuff (cha ching).
I don’t have much of any money left after my animals have tapped the account. That said, like the others, I try to make the right choice for the animal.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
