When I was a kid, I watched the vet spay our cat. He was an old large animal vet with fingers that looked like sausages, but he was a surprisingly delicate and fast surgeon. It was pretty amazing to see him pull that tiny uterus out of what seemed like an impossibly small incision in a couple of minutes. For this life-altering procedure, our family cat had been anesthetized with some fast-acting injection. She had no IV, no airway support, no heart monitoring, no preop blood work and only Baby Jesus knew what her blood pressure was during that procedure. She survived and thrived, living to at least 19 (she was a stray so we didn’t know her real age).
Yesterday, our dog had a teeth cleaning. She had an IV, was intubated and was given anesthesia with an a machine, had heart and blood pressure monitoring, and she had pre-op blood work. In short, she had better operative monitoring than 41% of patients in Latin America, 49% in south Asia, and 70% in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The technology used to care for our cat 30-plus years ago was not comparable to care in a hospital. Today, the technology used to care for our dog was pretty close to par with what a human would get at an outpatient surgi-center. Am I a sucker? Is our vet just larding on profitable technology to clean out my wallet? (My guess is “hell yes” but I don’t think she’s the only one doing it.) Are there still vets who offer the possibility of old-school anesthesia so you can pay tens of dollars rather than hundreds for that part of your animal’s treatment? And what do people on fixed incomes do when they have to take their animal to the vet?
JPL
Miss Moxie could use a teeth cleaning but since she is thirteen or fourteen, I decided not to. Why put her through that procedure. It seems cruel to me.
Raven
After our experience with Raven’s cancer we bought insurance for Bohdi. We use Embrace for him but Lil Bit, with all her pre-existing conditions, is not insurable. We don’t have kids and our situation allows us to provide for them in a pretty decent fashion. Friends thought we were insane to pay what we did for Raven’s treatment and maybe we were but it was our decision and we don’t regret it.
Raven
@JPL: There are many maladies that can come from not having them cleaned. I’m sure you know that.
Poopyman
All you have to do is Google “free low-cost spay neuter” to find the answer to this.
Raven
Here’s a question for the BJ community, we have had some very successful fund raising efforts for critters here. Do you ever feel funny about sending money somewhere else when there are most certainly animals and organizations in your area that could use the help? Dicey shit isn’t it?
wormtown
I feel the same way, mastermix, BUT I have a neice who just graduated from Vet school. She owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans, is working many, many hours, and is making lousy money. She feels like she will never be out of debt. So, not all the vets are getting rich.
JPL
@Raven: Yup! She’s pretty old to undergo that type of procedure and there are risks involved with that.
Raven
@Poopyman: And teeth cleaning or cancer treatment?
Poopyman
@JPL: The vet tells me that some animals are more susceptible to plaque build up than others and need cleaning more (much more) often than others. But Raven is right that only trouble comes from teeth that are obviously in need of cleaning, and age 13 is a better time than age 15 when there are real issues in her mouth and there are only bad options.
Raven
@JPL: We get marrow bones at Publix and they seem to do a decent job.
Flying Squirrel Girl
When I brought my dog from Costa Rica 6 months ago, she had to have all kinds of shots and tests in order to come here. I stocked up on heartworm pills before leaving since you can just walk into a vet and ask for what you need there, no visit with your pet necessary. She hasn’t been to a vet yet in the states, because I know that taking her in – even though she’s healthy – will cost at least $200, because it always does here. I think people have to make the same decisions with their pets’ health that they do for themselves and for the same reasons — healthcare is too expensive.
c u n d gulag
Once they find out what that visit to the vet will cost them, people on fixed incomes probably change the name of their pet, and call for it this way, “Here, Dinner! Here, dinner-dinner-dinner! Good boy! Now, stretch your neck out for your treat.”
Before everyone get p-o’d at me, I AM kidding.
Schlemizel
@Raven:
Hell, I feel much worse that there are children in my neighborhood who need the medical care and human attention we give animals here. We do what we can but there are limits. Yuo can’t make the whole world better but if everyone would make some tiny corner of it better maybe thats enough
Cassidy
@wormtown: She should look into getting a commission in the Reserves or Air/National Guard. They have loan repayment programs.
SuperHrefna
Like Poopyman says, there is usually somewhere nearby that does cheap spay/neuter – my local shelter does this for both feral and pet cats and its pretty basic (ferals get injected through the mesh of the Havahart traps they are caught in, pet cats are injected up close as it were and everyone has their post op snooze back in a carrier) but its only $50 a pop, a bargain for my outrageously expensive (and Long) island.
MomSense
You can tell I live in the country because our Vet comes to the house. He neutered our little stray cat at the kitchen table in about 3.5 minutes. Then he was off to visit some goats!
JPL
@Raven: I have a friend who lives in Hartwell and refuses to donate to the local shelter. Her feeling is that they don’t want to improve. You see this in small towns across the USA, so I think it depends where you live.
mistermix
@Flying Squirrel Girl: I was wondering if our vet is overpriced so I looked on Banfield’s site and they will sell you a $29/month wellness plan that includes 2 visits a year, vaccinations and de-worming. As the dog gets older, you can add in dental cleaning for $38/month. That’s 1/2 to 1/3 of what we pay for our dog at her vet. I don’t know the quality of care at Banfield (they are the vet clinics embedded in PetSmart locations) but it can’t be awful, so might be worth a look.
Schlemizel
@c u n d gulag:
You may not be wrong but my first guess is they skip a month or two of their own med, then if that is still not enough the pet goes to the shelter
Schlemizel
@Flying Squirrel Girl:
thats funny because when I was unemployed & without insurance I got my prozac from petmeds.com. It was dirt cheap.
Yet heartworm pills cost a fortune
SuperHrefna
For vaccinations and general healthcare, around here people that can’t afford the vet go to Petco’s weekly clinics. Every weekend my local Petco is thronged with people waiting to see the affordable vet that sets up on folding tables in the store. Again, no frills, but all the basics are there. You know, I used to think of Petco as just another overpriced big box store, but seeing their community outreach has changed my mind. In addition to the vet thing they stock the pet pantry of my local food bank pretty much single handedly. I’ve come to admire them. Though I still buy my pet food from locally wend stores I will happily buy toys, etc, from Petco! They are all right.
Todd
Yes, and yes. But would you even consider doing otherwise?
danielx
They don’t, mostly. If they can’t afford to visit a doctor themselves without missing a meal, they can’t afford to take pets in for anything except shots and sometimes not even that. A friend of my wife’s is on disability and has a rat terrier (or something), and she can’t afford preventive care.
c u n d gulag
@Schlemizel:
Yup, you’re probably pretty right about that.
Schlemizel
I am not whining, just noting for the record – WP is misbehaving again, it ate a comment
Poopyman
@Raven: Good luck with that. Almost ten years ago our sweetest cat, 13 years old, developed heart trouble. He went to the kitty cardiologist to get a complete diagnosis, but soon after they discovered he also had cancer. We tried kitty chemo for a month or so, but it was obvious it wasn’t helping him. We had to make a choice (that we would have had to make anyway)to let him live at peace at home as pain-free as possible until it was time to do the humane thing.
Cost us a few grand out of pocket that we don’t regret. And the end result was the same as if we’d been dirt poor. I guess my feelings about it are the same as yours – that a family member deserves every chance you can give them, and when the options run out do what’s best for them.
I know insurance is out there, but I don’t think it’d be cost-effective (for us anyway) )because heroic efforts to save a pet can become more about you than them, and I remember how traumatic it was for Nicky because there was no explaining that all they were doing to him was for his own good.
Too long, too rambling, too late into the thread, and probably incomplete. Sorry. Brought back memories.
Raven
@mistermix: We used Pet Insurance Review site to decide. It seems like it’s on the up and up and our exoerience with Embrace has been very good. They also seem to really care about the animal even though they are in Ohio and we’re in Georgia.
Todd
@Poopyman:
With my last dog, I got his teeth cleaned every two or three years, and think I stopped when he was 11. He was 13 when he died – pretty good for a big dog, and his teeth were in decent shape.
It was his arthritis that did him in – he just couldn’t get up anymore on the day I sent him home. I’d given him as long as I could-carried him up and down the steps into the house for months, plus, he’d gone incontinent.
mistermix
@Schlemizel: It was the p-word anti-depressant that did it.
Raven
@Poopyman: We spent north of 20K on Raven’s treatment. It was fucking awful, poor little dude had anal cancer and the radiation was especially bad. He went through a couple of months of agony but then recovered and made it 2.5 years. In doggie years that ain’t bad. We say we wou;dn’t do it again but I don’t really know.
jibeaux
Our dog’s neuter came with two different optional add-ons, I think one was the IV fluids, but I can’t remember the other. They were described as adding to the animal’s comfort but not absolutely necessary. I paid for both, of course, being a big fat sucker. I assume the low-cost spays and neuters done for nonprofits and the fixed income would still be the bare bones option, though.
Sasha
Well,
I officially became a crazy cat lady when Greycat developed heartworm disease. I cannot tell you how much money I poured into him but it was thousands (we bought an AC because he the hot humid air made it hard for him to breathe.) I don’t regret a dime or the time we had to put in. I’d be doing today if he hadn’t passed away but I was stunned at the cost of the medications. We treated him with Asthma meds: Albuterol and flovent and we ended up getting them from some hinky pharmacy that was located in Fiji or something because it would have been over $300.00 a month locally.
These were the same meds my daughter was on that I picked up for free at the base pharmacy or paid a few dollars in co-pays if I had to get it locally. There’s no way someone without insurance could pay for these without real difficulty.
SuperHrefna
@Raven: I’m thinking of getting pet insurance with my next kitten. I just lost my darling 4 year old cat boy to colon cancer after struggling for three years with pemphigus foliaceous – which we got under control by giving him a med that cost $90 a month. I’ve never insured a pet before, but I think I’m ready.
Hillary Rettig
@Raven: I don’t worry too much about that. There are things we can accomplish as a group that we can’t as individuals – including, perhaps, structural things like raising awareness of animal issues and greatly improving animal care in a region that really needs it.
This is a deeply caring community; no one should feel guilty about their level of giving. The need is basically infinite and is painful to contemplate, but each of us can only do our best, and as a group I think the BJers do more than most.
Or, to paraphrase (inverse) MLK: “Justice anywhere leads to justice everywhere.”
Poopyman
@Raven:
No, you never do know until faced with that goddamned choice.
Southern Beale
Aaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!
{ runs from room….}
Raven
@Poopyman: Yep, Lil Bit caqme to us with such a laundry list of problems, no tear ducts, cataracts, and immune-mediated hemolytic anemia. It’s a slog but she’s a sugar. Watch her fight off this grocery bag!
Lee
My wife is a veterinarian and she does not have a low cost clinic and she also works a few shifts a month at an emergency clinic.
A few things to note:
You get what you pay for. There are low cost options around her clinic. But they use the most rudimentary sedatives and their quality of care is also lower. Typically the low cost options do not treat the after procedure pain.
Pet insurance exists. All the vets she knows take it and they all hate it.
There are also ‘Care Credit’ options. She is not a big fan, but sometimes people do use it.
There are options for people on fixed/low income, if you have a relationship with the doctor. She’ll drop her fees so that you are only paying for the meds and material used. She won’t do this if you just suddenly show up with a sick animal. You can also sign over the pet.
All the drugs for your pets are the exact same ones as for humans. Often times you’ll have drugs used for pets that are more effective for the animals than they are for people.
Lee
@SuperHrefna:
Petco is outstanding.
Petland is a blight on the human race.
Southern Beale
One thing that bothers me about modern veterinary care is the increasing use of specialists. It’s following the same path that human medicine has taken. Fewer generalists, more specialists. Now if I bring one of our brood in to the “regular” vet, if they need anything beyond basic care it’s off to Nashville Veterinary Specialists, where they have a battery of oncologists, surgical specialists, behavioral specialists, dermatological specialists, orthopedic specialists, etc. waiting to take care of it. I’ve spend thousands and thousands of dollars over there on knee surgery for the dog and a couple of complicated oncological surgeries. My regular vet says he couldn’t have done any of those procedures but I feel like every time I go there they just see me as a walking bank account.
Raven
@Lee: Why do they hate it? After our experience with the cancer our vet said “people like you NEED pet health insurance”.
Raven
@Southern Beale: Yep. Lil Bit has an ophthalmologist and a heart doctor. We took Raven to Auburn for the cancer treatment. Out vet is a UGA grad and we’re right here in Athens but his judgement was that Auburn was the best option. He was there for 7 weeks and, after 3 we could pick him up Friday afternoon and had to have him back Sunday at noon. We couldn’t stand to leave the little dude there for that long so we made the trek.
Hillary Rettig
@Poopyman: We spent $10K on Orbit in his last year, and probably $5K the year before that. I don’t regret the expense, but I do regret that at the top-flight research animal hospital we took him to some of the care was poor. AND there was also a ton of nickel-and-diming for things like medicine administration (this was when he was kenneled with them and we were already paying a hefty per diem). I would reckon about 1/4 or more of our expense was wasted.
Thing is, I don’t know if I would do any different in the future. As you point out, it’s for a family member and you want the best. I couldn’t live with myself if I felt in hindsight I hadn’t at least tried to provide him with the best care possible. So I’m guess I’m paying for my peace of mind as much or more than the actual quality of care. That’s how they get you, I guess…
mistermix
@Southern Beale: While we were waiting for the cat to come around, I got to watch them fertility test a bull. It involved a giant torpedo-shaped electrode in the bull’s rectum, a glove that went to the top of the vet’s arm, and a little catching device that looked a bit like a child’s butterfly net.
Schlemizel
@mistermix:
Ah, thanks, usually I expect a warning about moderation.
I find it hilarious the words that get stuff bumped on different comment sections. Nobody has the same rules. One web site I visit passes the F-in-hiemer but bans “bastard”.
Here it is boner pills and risking money and the facilities designed to allow people to risk money on games of chance. OH, and legal prescription meds of certain kinds too I guess.
Just curious but that P word has a generic equivalent that starts with F, is that a no-no also?
Raven
@mistermix: The director of this is an former Athenian:
Dirty Work follows three men who deal with our unpleasant business — Darrell, a septic tank pumper, Russ, a bull semen collector, and Bernard, an embalmer. The film is about three men who discover their passion in undesirable professions, but it is also a meditation on how far removed our society has become from basic dimensions of what makes us human.
mistermix
@Schlemizel: The issue is a spam word list that’s pretty random, if you ask me, but cherished by John since it kills obvious spam. It’s on my list for elimination.
Raven
@mistermix: John who?
Capri
@mistermix: I know the head of veterinary services at Banfield. Their goal is that you can walk into any Banfield Hospital at any location in the country and get the same treatment for each disease and the costs will be comparable.
Let’s say you have a dog with simple ear and skin infections. If you took that dog to 50 random vet.s, it’s possible that you’d get 50 different treatments/work-ups (not hugely different, but some would culture first visit, some would not. Some would use different antibiotics than others). If you took that dog to 50 Banfields, you’d get the same work-up and the same treatment.
That can be good or bad. Good – the treatment they give is backed up by lots of epidemiology and data. (Banfield has lots of animal numbers and employs epidemiologists to analyze their results).
The bad – if a regular veterinarian feels your dog isn’t exactly a simple ear/skin infection they will modify the treatment plan. A Banfield vet’s hands are tied.
In general – cats are much easier to anesthetize than dogs. A lot of practices use injectable anesthetics for cats undergoing simple procedures but would always intubate a dog.
Schlemizel
@mistermix:
I am not complaining, I completely understand and very much appreciate the lack of spamage around these parts. I just think it is funny how different sites treat different words.
@Raven:
Rotund guy, posts here occasionally to let us know we are still all a bunch of ungrateful dicks, gets loaded and send fuzzy pictures of animals he claims own him. You remember
amy c
I got in an argument with a friend last year – the kind of argument that alters your friendship forever – basically over these kinds of costs. He wanted to get a puppy, but didn’t have much in the way of income (he even needed to do some fundraising from family/friends to get set up for the dog…buy a crate, etc.) And my point was, vets are crazy expensive, what will you do if the puppy gets sick? You should wait until your money situation is a little better.
Yeah, he did not listen to me, he got the puppy. She is lovely, and he is a wonderful companion to her. As I knew he would be, that part was never up for debate. The two of them make such a perfect pair that I feel like kind of like history’s greatest monster for even suggesting it was anything less than perfect timing.
That said, he’s still SOL if the puppy gets sick, as even the routine stuff is a challenge for him financially. Part of me is outraged at this injustice, that it should be so hard for good, solid dog lovers to afford a pet. Shouldn’t a caring and loving home be enough?! But having had a pet of my own saved by super expensive veterinary services in the past, well, I’ve got a soft spot for all that technology, too.
I don’t know. Like anything, I guess it would be nice if there was some kind of sane midpoint.
mistermix
@Capri: Yeah, it’s a dumb assumption on my part to think cats and dogs have the same health needs.
Sounds like Banfield is trying to make vet care affordable using science. I have to appreciate that.
Schlemizel
@Capri:
I started life in the high paid field of computer maintenance (and take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting enough cheese) and got to be very good at troubleshooting.
It occurs to me that what doctors do is not any different than what I did when running down why a computer would suddenly drop a bit or byte here and there.
You know how the thing is supposed to work so you can make some assumptions when it does not. You probably have seen this same condition a thousand times and at least 998 of them have been the same thing so you treat that thing. If it happens that this is one of those other 2 times oops! And heaven forfend this is one of those once in a million times because we are going to go through a lot of testing and a lot of trial and error before we figure that out.
With computers its mostly an annoyance but with living things it could be fatal.
mistermix
@amy c: A well-loved dog that gets euthanized if it has an illness that the owner can’t afford to treat is not the world’s saddest story, in my opinion, but other opinions may differ.
Maude
@mistermix:
Akismet works, we don’t want to try to fix it. Without it, we’d be seeing those Bob Dole ads a lot.
wonkie
I live in one of the poores counties in my state. There are five or six vets in driving distance and they each have a different niche in the market (large animal, expensive vet, cheap vet, old school-should-be-retired-but-his-clients-haven’t-died-yet…)
The cheap vet is high volume. He does simple fixes or euthanizes. A spay costs about one fifty. The expensive vet, wellyou can’t get out of there for less than three hundred for any reason.
The old school vet is in his eighties and should probably have his license pulled. He lives up in the hills somewhere and caters to the people who live up inthe hills somewhere and god help the animals who live up there.
I don’t think any of them are making huge amounts of money. There is a charity that will pay for treatment sometimes but their money gets used up fast.
ANd there’s suckers like me. So far this year I have paid for they surgery on a cat, a spay on a dog, spay for tow cats, medical expenses for two sick kittens, and repair of a bie wound on a dog. Some charities compensated me for some of it.
The newspaper in the nearest city every Christmas posts present requests from low income senior so that more fortunate people can buy a gift for someone in need. Most of the requests are pet-related and many are requests for help with vet bills. It’s heart-breaking.
Walker
@wormtown:
Vet schools were oversold in the past 10 years. There was supposed to be all this demand. But the demand is in rural areas where people cannot pay enough to support a vet. Also, it appears that domestic pet ownership has peaked.
Schlemizel
@amy c:
I had the same discussion with my daughter when she wanted a dog. But she was moving 600 miles away so a big dog has some advantages. It cost her a ton to get from the vet &, of course, it now has some health issues that require regular attention & she can hardly afford them. Its not always a good thing
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Maude: @mistermix: Yes, Akismet is a pretty good spam filter. I don’t give a shit about that – spam words are a minor inconvenience. But I can’t be the only one to miss the Recent Comments widget, especially when you put up four active threads in the space of an hour every morning.
To the topic at hand, I love my cats, and they are very good companions. But I’m not certain how much medical care I could justify giving them when the dollars creep above a certain point.
I am comfortably middle class (for now), but not comfortable enough that an extra few thousand wouldn’t be significant.
I don’t begrudge anyone who is able to afford high end treatment for a beloved pet, though. It’s a painful calculus, but part of life.
Rosalita
I have mixed feeling about this. One the one hand, a vet is going to give you all the options available for an illness because it is their job. On the other hand, I do think they go overboard with the tests they feel should be done annually (fecal sample for one). I’ve had cats my entire life and most have lived long full lives without all these tests/treatments. Ditto the meds, refusing to let you get long-term meds from a less expensive source is a peeve of mine.
I volunteer at an animal shelter and we offer low cost spay/neuter and they do anesthetize them I’ve never seen any sign of an IV or intubating.
The best vet I ever had was a country vet in Cumming, GA. He took care of everything from hamsters to cows. He brought my Noah back from the brink when he had a terrible URI and he didn’t charge me a kings ransom for it.
Then again, you have people who will only take their cat to a “cat specialist” so in a way we enable some of the high-maintenance stuff.
mike with a mic
I think more and more people turn their animals loose or give them up when they get sick. They just aren’t affordable now. They’re slowly turning into a luxury for upper income types.
Not that this is entirely a bad thing. Take cats for example, we need a lot less of them. For some people cat wounds can lead to horrific infections. My sister is allergic (highly and to a dangerous level) to cats. Well cat owners being what they are she didn’t know that her cat free apartment had an owner that hid one in it before and that someone else in the building had one as well. So her medical bills went up and she landed in the hospital. It’s horrific, but when you are around people with pet allergies you realize just how horrible some pet owners are and willing to endanger human life just for their pet.
And let’s be honest their original purpose of rodent control isn’t really valid for most people.
Personally, I’ll cheer if owning cats becomes the sole domain of the 1%.
Rosalita
@Schlemizel: I think that was Raven’s point… John who, the guy who drunk posts around here once in a while
Schlemizel
@Rosalita:
OH! THAT John! Thanks.
SuperHrefna
@amy c: I think the mid point is something we all have to find for ourselves. Having worked in rescue in the past, I can tell you there is a lot of crazy out there. The shelter I used to be associated with not only wouldn’t let people without strong financial resources adopt a pet (a very common position) they also wouldn’t let people with full time jobs adopt a pet ( another very common position) They only wanted owners with both money and time, which is a hard combination to find and meanwhile dogs and cats are being euthanized daily. This is a no kill shelter, but it gets the vast majority of its denizens by cherry picking the local kill shelters…
I totally understand why you wanted your friend to get his finances in order before adopting a dog but there are so many lonely dogs out there that it could also be argued that by giving one a home he’s doing a good thing, even if the dog’s life might be a little shorter than if he had an owner who could afford all the possible care.
For myself, even though I could afford kitty chemo I refuse to do it. It’s not about love, I love my cats as much as it is possible for anyone to love a cat, I just think that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits and its not something tat a cat can give informed consent to. When my darling boy got colon cancer last month I made him as comfy as I could, he had specialists, fluids, enemas, etc for as long as they improved his quality of life and then I held him in my arms as they put him to sleep. Now he’s under a bed of primroses in the front woods. I wish I could have given my grandmother such quality of death – she had a long, drawn out nightmare death with Alzheimer’s. My vets all offered me the aggressive treatment options but when I turned thm down they all told me that thy would have made the same choice if my cat had been theirs. I mss him so much, but I’m trying to get my heart ready for a new kitten now.
Maude
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
John took off the recent comments ad on because in the past it had caused problems.
I liked it, but I’m okay without it.
I blame Obama.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@SuperHrefna:
Wait what? That equation seems pretty hard-ass.
PurpleGirl
@SuperHrefna: Does PetCo work with shelters as PetSmart does to hold adoption events for cats? I think these events are a very good thing to give people the chance to see and adopt a cat/kitten.
Maude
@Schlemizel:
Tunch is the owner of John. They are both floofy.
Tunch has the white fur.
We could get a pic of John on a milk carton, you think?
bemused
When I was a little kid, small animal vets just didn’t exist. Heck, there were very few large animal vets in that rural area at that time. People just didn’t spay or neuter their dogs or barn cats then and many probably wouldn’t have even if there were any small animal vets available. Some folks still don’t which is why they have a lot of inbred cats hanging around.
My parents knew a vet fairly well and he consented to spay our dog. It was done one nice spring or summer day at his home on a table outdoors! I don’t remember a lot from that far back but I’ve never forgotten that event. He was, by all accounts, a good vet in that era and the dog recovered with no problems.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Maude: I know *why* he took it off. I’m just suggesting maybe there’s a different Recent Comments plug-in that would function better. I also realize this is a crazy fast commenting community, which probably lead to some of those issues.
Either way, it was gone when he did the redesign last time and brought back because it was popular. People use it.
amy c
@SuperHrefna: That’s a good point, too. We are often, in general, way better at pet end-of-life stuff than human end-of-life stuff.
I’m sorry about your kitty. But it really sounds like you did everything right for him.
Amber Dusick’s cartoon on her struggle to adopt a rescue dog (and the comments on the post) illuminate how restrictive the adoption process can be. It was a real eye-opener in a depressing way, though her story has a good ending.
SuperHrefna
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): as I said, there is a lot of crazy in rescue. You will often find people in rescue who (secretly or not secretly) believe that almost no one deserves their animals, and who treat all prospective adopters as hostile combatants until proven to be one of the ( very few, in their minds) Good Ones. Ironically this mind set often leads to hoarding as the rescuer thinks that it would be better for the animal to live with them and their twenty two other pets than to go live with some substandard family who have something terrible like full time jobs.
Maude
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
We could all email John and tell him.
Avery Greynold
Comments heavily support expensive U.S. pet care but there is a complete lack of compassion expressed for the third-world humans Mistermix talked about. Read the polls, and the only thing Americans are united behind is cutting aid to foreign countries. Our wealthy 1 percent care only for their tribe and we care only for our U.S. tribe (5 percent of the world). Don’t look at me, I give nothing. Just observing…
Schlemizel
@Maude:
I never said (and I don’t think Raven did either) that we were LOOKING for John!
Besides who would buy all that sour milk?
@Maude:
Oh, yes, lets! I hear he LOVES to get emails b-{D
SuperHrefna
@PurpleGirl: yes, I’ve actually taken part in a few!
SuperHrefna
@PurpleGirl: yes, I’ve actually taken part in a few!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@PurpleGirl: I adopted three of my four through two groups who do adoption events at our local PetCo. I got out of the habit of going to PetSmart when the Arizona boycott was getting started.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Maude: I hear he loves that. :)
@SuperHrefna: I guess I have been spoiled by our local rescue shelter, which only asks for proof of employment, and, if you are a renter, calls your landlord to check that you’ve got approval. Adoption fee of $40 covers spay/neuter if the animal hasn’t been done yet.
One thing that does irritate me is that we seem to have a generation of college students who decide that a pet would be a great companion during school, but then realize they can’t take the animal with them when they leave for whatever reason, so a lot of them end up at the shelter every spring.
Lee
@Raven:
A lot of the problem they have is that pet insurance will deny a lot of claims based on what they are think are ‘breed problems’. Another is moving away from the cash aspect of vet medicine to the insurance.
J.W. Hamner
Well when you think about it most of our medical research comes from animal models… though more rats and mice than cats and dogs… but its pretty natural that vets would use that knowledge to improve pet care if people will pay for it. Which, it should be noted, is how many conservatives want health care for humans to be run when they talk about “skin in the game”… where I guess you put grandma down because you can’t pay for her cancer treatment.
SuperHrefna
@amy c: that’s a great cartoon! I’m so glad she got her dog in the end.
LeeM
There’s an old joke amongst veterinarians:
What’s the difference between a vet and a human doctor?
The vet is licensed to work on more than one species.
SuperHrefna
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): a pox on those students. People who don’t understand that their pets are living beings with thoughts and feelings drive me to distraction.
mike with a mic
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
I can completely get behind that. I’m all for restricting pets (of the dog and cat variety.) Pets are a nemesis in apartment buildings, especially to those with allergies (and pet owners will never obey the rules or show even the smallest amount of compassion to those around them who’s lives they impact). I know multiple pet owners that violate the “no pets” rule without giving a shit about the damage they do to the health of others in their building. Many of which have animals that are completely unsuited to apartment dwelling. To make matters worse many of these are hard charging types that are out the door by seven to make it to the office and probably won’t return till 8-9pm.
This isn’t fair to the neighbors (hell it’s not fair to them that you own an animal at all in many cases) and it’s cruel for the animal as well. I don’t see any problems with pet ownership for people who own a house with a yard to contain their animals (and actually do it) and have at least one person home to deal with the animal, but outside of that I can’t really endorse the ownership of a dog or a cat.
Most pet owners are horrifically irresponsible about the entire deal.
Lee
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
This is not new with college students. My college town had the same problem when I was there in the 80’s.
Omnes Omnibus
@Avery Greynold:
The vast majority of those Americans are woefully uninformed about how much of the budget goes to foreign aid.
Source.
It is an information problem not a compassion problem.
WereBear
I have pondered this and here is my response:
When the perfect is the enemy of the good
When the alternative is killing the animal, letting someone with a full-time job or financial restrictions pour some love on them for as long as they last… doesn’t seem so darn bad, does it?
Maude
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
There are no pets allowed in my building. That is good.
This happened because the previous landlord had a tenant that didn’t have a litter box. That’ll do it.
A dog barking all day isn’t nice to be around.
Maude
@Schlemizel:
Dear John,
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@mike with a mic:
that’s a mighty broad brush you’re painting with there, dude. I think I remember you from previous discussions about pets. I live in an apartment (old victorian converted into apartments) and I have indoor cats. They like it, I like them, and I paid pet deposits on both. It was fine with the owner, and if you have an allergy to pets, maybe you should find an apartment complex that really is no pets.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Maude: Like I said, I have no problem with a no pets apartment. Now that I have pets, I wouldn’t live in one, but to each their own. I don’t think it’s right for people to sneak pets, either. If you want a pet, you should put up the deposit that’s agreed upon and be open about it.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
I fired my long-term (20+ years) vet last year over skyrocketing fees. ($700+ for an annual visit, bloodwork, and shots for two cats? No. Just…no. They wanted to do X-rays, fergawdsake.) I walked into another nearby vet with that estimate and had the pleasure of watching their jaws drop. Settled on the vet who provides spaying/neutering for the shelter I adopted my orange babies from.
PetCo hardsells their vaccination events every time I stop in for rosies for the turtle. I think it’s a good thing, as is their efforts at supplying pet food for people who would otherwise have to give up their furfamily.
TooManyJens
@Maude: The simple, and brain-dead, spam word list is not the same thing as Akismet. Akismet works great. The spam word list is what was used to kill spam before smart tools like Akismet were developed.
Tim F.
Max gets the regular old fashioned care. Our well-regarded vet clinic saves the fancy stuff for emergencies, and Pittsburgh has a special vet hospital for open heart surgery and other cases where you need all that business.
LibraryGuy
Hi,
we’ve had pet insurance (VPI) for both our since-departed Westie and our current terrier mix. The Westie required a lot of testing and help with the cancer that ultimately killed her, and we had about $4500 in costs from that. VPI reimbursed around $2300, which was a big help.
They also reimburse for wellness care and checkups, which applies to our current pup. For us, the peace of mind it a great thing. We never worried with the Westie about whether we could afford to do something, just whether we should.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@SuperHrefna:
This is why I don’t foster. I know I would become that person. Instead, I sponsor. (I also send updates on my babies to the shelters to be passed on to the fosters. They love it.)
Both shelters I’ve adopted from recently cared about two things: financial stability and references from our vet. I think that’s a good metric.
CaseyL
@JPL: I can see your point. Teeth cleaning requires general anesthesia, which is particularly risky in an older cat.
If she’s in good health otherwise, not a problem.
But if she gets quiet and stops eating, it might be because her teeth are in bad shape. I had an elderly kitty (who hadn’t had a cleaning in a while). She wasn’t eating, was obviously unhappy and not well… and it turned out her teeth were so bad it hurt to eat. Once her teeth were cleaned, and a few pulled, she had a new lease on life and lasted another 3 years.
Mnemosyne
@mike with a mic:
People can die from peanut allergies. Should all apartment renters be forbidden from having peanut products inside the apartment in case the next tenant is allergic?
I understand the annoyance with people who keep pets in what are supposed to be non-pet apartments, but it also sounds like your sister’s landlord decided to cheap out and not change the carpets when she moved in.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
@CaseyL:
Actually, there’s a new technique for cats that does NOT require general anesthesia — ask your vet if they have it available. If their teeth are already really bad, they probably would still need anesthesia because of the pain, but for general maintenance, it’s worth tracking down a vet that does the non-anesthesia version.
Walker
Holy crap. That is ridiculous. And I thought I was being extravagant paying extra for a vet that makes house calls (she sets up shop in our downstairs bathroom).
Chet Manly
I just wanted to repeat what Lee said about “Care Credit” being an option for emergency pet health care if you’re on a fixed income. It’s may not necessarily be a good idea to be adding debt, but when something unexpected like this comes up on a fixed income your only three real options are credit, giving up your pet, or watching your pet die knowing they could be saved. Depending on your situation credit may easily be the least bad of your crappy options.
About 7 years or so ago our cat got a pretty serious mouth infection. My wife had suddenly lost her ability to work for health reasons about a year prior and I was working a full-time job, part-time job, and going to school full time at a CC so I made a monthly profit on my GI Bill. Our income was so fixed that the best we could accomplish was falling behind slowly rather than quickly.
The Care Credit folks gave us credit we certainly wouldn’t have qualified for on a regular card at something like 10% interest, which sucked, but it sure as hell beat losing our pet over a measly few hundred bucks so we were very happy for the option.
BobTX2
“Am I a sucker?”
Yes.
——–
I find it incredibly disturbing, as one who has worked in international development, that most American dogs and cats get better healthcare than the people I’ve served abroad. The money Americans throw into doggie insurance and cat surgeries could pay for absolutely enormous gains in human welfare around the world.
Keith
IMO this new vet stuff is a combination of the result of pet insurance getting popular along with the utility of using pets as test subjects for treatments intended for humans in the future. Got a new chemo treatment? Try it on dogs. Why use research dogs when people will bring in their own dogs and *pay* you test it on them?
On a related note, I get EPO 3 times a week at about $1000 per shot (2 cc’s, I think. Not sure how many “units”). The same brand (Epogen) is available for dogs at $50 for 2000 units.
CDW
One of our dogs died on the table while she was being spayed. It was way back in the 70s so they probably didn’t pretest her tolerance for anesthesia. Your kitty may have just been hardy and/or lucky. I’m willing to pay more if it keeps my pets from dying needlessly.
P.S. A friend who grew up on a farm said he used to stick (male) cats head in a boot while he neutered them. He was a republican, I believe.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Mnemosyne:
Tell me more.
@Walker:
I was expecting to save around 25% by switching vets and ended up saving around 50%. I’d pay extra for house calls in a heartbeat. We have one getting started here who works out of a panel truck; I see the truck on the road every so often.
Also, it’s a relief to no longer have to deal with the constant hardsell for Hill’s food. (You’d think that reminding them of the melamine recalls would get it through to them they weren’t going to scam me that way, but….) It helps that I’ve never had a cat who would eat it. All four of mine have had survived starvation before they joined our family; you’d think they’d eat anything put before them. Duchess has even started turning her nose up at Blue Buffalo. Royal Canin or nothing!
Juju
I have an older dog and she needed a teeth cleaning. The vet gave an estimate of $500. That seemed exessive to me, so I ordered a tooth scraper from Amazon, watched some videos on YouTube, got some advice from my sister, who has been scraping her dog’s teeth since puppyhood, and gave it a shot. It worked out beautifully. I did one or two teeth at a time and it took a few days, but her breath smells much better and she’s happy, more playful,rolling around again and chewing on her chewey bones again. Now I maintain with doggie toothpaste and a spray, and check her teeth for tartar build up every three months I check for build up and do a maintenance scrape.
The Moar You Know
You have your animal pal put down. It fucking sucks to be poor.
SuperHrefna
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: oh the shilling for Hills gets so old. My regular vet knows me well enough not to bother suggesting a cat food with grains or byproducts but I’ve seen so many new vets the past couple of months … Given tht Hills is even more expensive than the outrageously priced stuff I already buy ( Solid Gold, Tiki Cat, Weruva) the kickbacks on vet food must be really large.
SuperHrefna
@The Moar You Know: it really does.
ruemara
If you’re like me, you feed them the best you can buy and don’t get to go to the vet, like you don’t get to go to the doctor all the time. And you wonder if you should give up your only family and companionship to people who can give them bigger home and better care. But I keep plugging away because I’m still working on getting back to being near middle class. And they’re young, I have some time. There’s also cheap vet clinic in my area. It’s $35 per cat for shots and such, but it’s better than nothing. You can roll the pet care, 1 month for one cat, another month the other cat.
Kristine
I lost King in March after a five-month battle with hemangiosarcoma, which is about the worst cancer a dog can get. Dogs often die before treatment because they bleed out when lesions in the spleen or liver rupture. Up to that point, there may be no indication that they’re even sick.
Anyway. King was diagnosed in October. He had surgery to remove his spleen and part of his liver at a cost of about $6500. After that came chemo, two drugs on alternating days. One cost about $30 a month. The other, Palladia, cost over $500–it’s dosed according to weight, and King was a big dog. Insurance paid half the cost of the surgery–I had a lower cost plan, and the cost of the surgery blew past the limit for individual incidents–and I used that to cover the cost of the chemo.
Average life expectancy with surgery/chemo was 6-8 months, so King just about hit that. I knew when I decided to treat him that his cancer was not curable. But the chemo didn’t make him sick–he still ate and played with Gaby and barked at the UPS guy. He acted like an old dog until the end, not a sick dog. He almost made it to his 12th birthday, which is darned old for a guy his size. And, it gave me a chance to say goodbye.
Some could argue the immorality of providing an animal better treatment than many people ever receive. But when in the space of 24 hours you go from watching your dog hop around the rug playing with a toy to discussing the possibility of his dying on the operating table, perhaps you can be forgiven for not considering the bigger picture. Or not. I didn’t ask anyone for their advice.
I have insurance for Gaby, too. For the big bills, it makes a difference.
Jay C
We also had to deal with a cost/benefit decision a few years ago for our cat Jeremy. The poor little guy had been born (we think) with a bizarre problem (which of course, we couldn’t detect): a perineal hernia which had pushed his heart and other innards way out of place, and would have probably eventually killed him. Fortunately, we live in NYC, with access to an extremely high – if costly – standard of veterinary surgery, and they were able to fix Jeremy surgically at the age of 7 months. And he has been the picture of kitty health ever since (he’ll be five next month). Quite fortunately the expense was not a factor for us – and we feel it justified every time he does something cute or affectionate or amusing, either for us or the other cats, but I know it would be a much harder decision to make if money were more of an issue. Either way.
MomSense
@amy c:
I know that in our community, one of the big pet supply chains hosts a day each month when an area veterinarian comes in to provide shots and flea meds etc at cost. It is something like $35 for all the yearly shots per cat. I can’t remember what the cost is for dogs.
There may be these programs in other places as well. It really is a great idea for people who may need help with just the basics.
Capri
@mistermix: There’s something that’s even more sad, IMHO. There are a disturbing number or people who bring healthy animals to veterinary clinics to be put down for trivial reasons. Things like they got a puppy while they spent the summer at the lake, now that they’re returning to the city the puppy has to go. Or the kids begged for a dog and said they’d clean up after it, but now the bloom is off the rose and they aren’t so good at walking the dog regularly.
It’s such a common issue that virtually every small animal clinic has an “elective euthanasia” policy where they spell out whether or not they will kill healthy pets at the owner’s request.
WereBear
If we have to money to spend, we spend it. At least it goes into the economy. And if we don’t, (and I have four cats with no money, we already know we can’t do anything if something happens) they had a far better life with us than they would starving on the street or killed in a shelter.
And I get very impatient with people who act like we should just drop all these charities into a pit and the most pathetic one should get all the money. Why pay for one pet when that money could go to a bunch? Because it doesn’t work that way, does it? Are we going to not provide dental care for a bunch of children because someone needs a heart operation?
Should we feed hungry children? Aren’t they going to just get hungry again?
NO! We take care of everybody we can. That’s the only fair way.
And, BTW, you know what that kind of talk reminds me of? People who claim they tip big… except THIS time, because the server had a run in her stocking or something. Don’t BS me with “Oh, that money could be spent on other things.” You spend your money on charities YOU like, okay? That’s how it works.
People everywhere like to pile up on comment threads about a kitty or a doggy miraculously saved and say things like “That money would have saved a dozen animals….” No, that money went to save that animal… spent my people who saved that dozen you are so worried about.
And I bet you haven’t dropped a dime in a collection jar for animals in your life.
ricky
They never should have let their owners fix their income.
WereBear
@Capri: Yeah, that really burns me. Lots of vets just take the animal, because the people will just throw them out the car window on the way home if they don’t.
And we wonder where people learn their awful behaviors from.
furklempt
@mike with a mic:
Irresponsible pet stewards are assholes. Also assholes: people who assume all pet stewards (or even a majority) are irresponsible.
raven
@WereBear: Lil Bit got dropped in a box on our vets doorstep in the middle of the night. She was peeing blood an her eyes were in awful shape. I’m not sure why but the vet removed her tear ducts so she has been on cyclosporine since we took her. We figured someone was just at the end of being able to care for her, she was filthy but just loves people. You can make yourself nuts trying to figure out why and how some people treat animals but it’s a losing proposition. Love the one your with.
noodles
put them down and sob their eyes out, that’s what they do
noodles
@Chet Manly: As for CareCredit, take care that your payments go in on time, every time, or you are screwed.
WereBear
Along with other good points raised in this discussion, I’d just like to point out that some people expect the chirpy call from the vet about the altering, only to hear that their little puppy or kitten had a bad reaction to the anesthetic, and they are dead.
The IV & tube & such are to prevent that from happening.
Grumpy Code Monkey
To truly answer that question, we’d need to compare outcomes between then and now. How many animals survived such procedures? How many developed complications after the surgery? Your cat thrived (as many others did, including ours). How many didn’t compared to now?
What procedures are possible now that weren’t thirty years ago? Our dog shredded his CCL before he was two years old; thanks to modern orthopedic surgical techniques, we staved off crippling arthritis for a number of years (at 6, he’s just now having problems, whereas without the surgery he’d have been hurting badly by 4). Would we have been able to do that thirty years ago?
All of this modern equipment requires a significant capital outlay on the part of your veterinarian. Lab services aren’t cheap, either. Tech salaries, consumables (anesthesia, needles, vaccines, etc.), all of this costs real money. How much of what you pay goes toward profit vs. paying off loans?
Put another way; what’s your vet driving to work? If it’s a Ferrari, then yeah, they’re probably soaking you. If it’s a Chevy, then they’re probably just doing okay. My sister-in-law is a vet with a thriving practice, but she’s not making money hand over fist. She’s doing about as well as anyone else in the middle class, but no better.
We’re here because for many of us, our relationships with our animals have changed significantly over the years My wife and I have no children; our dogs and cats serve that role for us. Hell, look at Cole’s relationship with Lily. Many of us have demanded better care for our animals. The market simply did what it does best and followed the demand.
raven
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Well said.
B. Lehmann
I brush my dog’s teeth every night. We even sing a little brushing song.
Jebediah
@Raven:
Yeah, it does sometimes feel a little weird.
kuvasz
For a lot of people their pets act as one of their hobbies. I have six dogs. Lost two this past year, a 12 and 13 year old Kuvasz, bless them Abba and Aja, replaced with one 8-9 year old beagle from a no-kill shelter named Rosie. My wife and I spend on average about $1,000 per dog on medical treatment, drugs, food and treats. We could go to Europe for weeks each year with the money, but the daily joy of being around our dog pack is far better for the soul than tromping thru Tuscany for a few days. Besides, of the six dogs we have five are rescues, the remaining was a wedding gift. We consider our house the Rivendel of the neighborhood. Once you get there every dog is accepted and safe.
brantl
We spent money we really didn’t have to get a tendon in our dog’s rear left leg repaired, to have the dog die two months later from bleeding from tumors that had metasticized throughout the poor dog. We had asked the vet if she was healthy before the operation, and he told us she was just fine. If we had known that she had inoperable tumors, we would have let her go in much less pain, and greater peace. When the vet told me no one else would have detected her problem either, I was first tempted to laugh in his face, and them punch him squarely in the mouth, knocking out as many teeth as I possibly could. Any brain damage I could have caused would have been an improvement.
Some vets are still douchebags, regardless of modern technology.
Andrew Abshier, DVM
I’ve been a reader of BJ for years and mainly lurk, but I must respond to this post. Some background: I am a 1998 graduate of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Oklahoma State University, working in companion animal practice. Much of my practice was as a locum tenens veterinarian, filling in for vets in clinics all over Illinois and Florida. As a relief vet I’ve worked in clinics ranging from top-of-the-line American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) accredited facilities to small threadbare practices and many in between.
This could get very long, and I’ll try to be brief. Let me address a few things from the post:
Is our vet just larding on profitable technology to clean out my wallet? (My guess is “hell yes” but I don’t think she’s the only one doing it.)
No, your vet is practicing to a standard of care appropriate for the times. The reason veterinary medicine has evolved towards these higher standards is for better patient outcomes. The story of the old vet who did a spay under injectable anesthesia raised the hairs on the back of my neck; this is considered well below the standard of care today because pets have died under injectable anesthesia. Even the charity vets doing spays/neuters for low income clients, at the very least, use gas anesthesia, have a trained technician to monitor the pet and anesthesia during the procedure, and in many cases will place IV catheters for fluid support.
Are there still vets who offer the possibility of old-school anesthesia so you can pay tens of dollars rather than hundreds for that part of your animal’s treatment?
Sure. Look for the most broken-down looking practice possible, especially if they advertise in the paper or phone book something to the effect of “stop overpaying for veterinary care.” I have worked in those practices on a relief basis and I can assure you they are cutting corners somewhere, whether it’s high volume, or not performing anesthesia to modern standard of care, or using outmoded treatment modalities for certain conditions. I’ve had clients come into my present practice (an AAHA-accredited practice) from the cheap place in our area, either because their pet didn’t improve, or from disgust with the physical plant of the cheap place (it is said to be outmoded and dirty), or disgust with the cheap place vet. Sometimes it’s all three. It’s always better to pay more and get the job done right–most of all for your pet, who doesn’t have any say in this.
Also, on a full-time salary, associate veterinarians make about as much as master plumbers or carpenters, the latter of which have not been through the schooling we vets have. We who are DVMs did not go into this for the money, in most cases; if we wanted money, we might have become MDs instead–or plumbers, or carpenters! A practice has to pay for the building, salaries of the vets, wages of the support staff, and equipment including but often not limited to blood analyzing equipment, ultrasound, x-ray, high-speed dental suite, drugs, and all of the consumables that go with medical practice. It’s not cheap.
And what do people on fixed incomes do when they have to take their animal to the vet?
For this, sadly, I don’t have a good answer. With clients like that I try to work with them as much as possible to minimize the bill. The availability of free antibiotics from Publix has been a godsend in some of these case. But when it’s an extensive case, such as parvo, or hit by car, or a major medical condition like diabetes or Cushing’s disease, this gets a lot harder. I do everything I can for them, but sometimes the medical needs of the pet far outstrips their ability to pay. As a liberal, and someone sworn to protect public health, it pains me that so many pets end up going untreated, or abandoned, because of an inability to pay. But any talk of a sliding-scale clinic is met with howls of opposition from the local vet associations, because they (rightly) fear the loss of business. (Right now, private practices are getting squeezed, both with the lousy economy and increased competition from the corporate practices and Wal-Mart.)
There are, at least, low-cost vaccine clinics that at least enable owners to get their pets vaccinated, plus many organizations offer low-cost good quality spay and neuter. That helps the well pets at least.
One more thing: So-called “Anesthesia-free dentals” are a fraud. At best, they can do the superficial cleaning of tartar and plaque from the teeth, but they do nothing to address the dental disease that occurs below the gumline–and in cats, that’s an important consideration. Left untreated, below the gumline dental disease can result in pain, then subsequent loss of teeth. Even the very best pet will not tolerate probing of each individual tooth to check for pockets while awake, to say nothing of doing dental x-rays to further evaluate the teeth.
As for those who might want to try this at home, root planing and scaling is a specialized skill that one needs training for and requires practice. An untrained individual can do more damage to the teeth, which would then warrant referral to a vet or even a specialty veterinary dentist to address.
I’ll stop now. I have to work this afternoon, but can come back into the thread if anyone has questions or comments.
Jebediah
@SuperHrefna:
I’ll see your pox and raise you a neckpunch. They’re in college. They are old enough to know exactly what you said.
SuperHrefna
@ruemara: If you love your pets and they love you they would far rather be with you than live a life with more material comforts but less you. Cats pine for their owners, they really do. I’ve seen depressed cats come to life again when their owners finally found them, after months of separation, at the shelter. Which reminds me, you can get a cat microchipped for as little as $25 and it is so, so worth it.
BethanyAnne
@Schlemizel: and now I’m gonna have Detioriata running through my head, lol :)
Roxy
I had two cats, Puddin who lived to be 16 years old and Penny who lived to be 21. I am so glad we had a vet that made house calls. She was the vet for both of our cats. The cats seemed to be less stressed by being able to stay at home for the vet visits.
When it was time to put our cats to sleep our vet was able to come to the house each time and put our cats to sleep.
I couldn’t tell you how much we spent on our two cats, however we have no regrets.
Roxy
If anyone is looking for a senior dog and lives in the SF Bay Area there is a group called Muttsville. Take a look.
BethanyAnne
My 15 year old cat had her kidneys start to fail 3 years ago, just after I finally got employed again. I took her to the local vet every other day for 2 years for subcutaneous fluids. I was deeply lucky, and the local vet only charged $5 for each “inflation”, as it was only a few minutes of tech time. The fluids were about $30 / month. I simply can’t say good enough things about Kingsland Vet in Katy TX. If you are near them, they are worth every penny.
AuroraD
@ Andrew Abshier, DVM – Thank you! That was a wonderful, informative post, and you sound like the kind of vet we’d all like to have caring for our beloved beasts. You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.
steve
A few tips I’ve picked up, or learned through trial and error:
Take your pet to a vet in a small town, preferably a small rural community.
Check out the vet’s building; if it’s a beautiful, modern-looking structure with landscaping around it, don’t go there. Also, check out the cars in the parking lot; if it’s full of shiny new SUVs, don’t go in.
Don’t be afraid to express concern about the cost from the very start. If you convey a “money is no object” attitude, you’re going to get soaked.
Many of the shots that vets give pets are unnecessary. For dogs, anything other than a rabies shot and a heartworm check is optional.
Take advantage of free or low-cost vaccination and spay/neutering services where available. This requires a little patience and planning but it’s well worth it. You also won’t get a lecture if you opt for the minimum required vaccinations.
If your pet needs medication, get it online.
OTC anti-flea products are generally sufficient unless you live in a rural area or have an “outside” pet.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Andrew Abshier, DVM:
That’s what I was wondering. I was visualizing heavy sedation vs general anesthesia, if it was legit, and wondering if that really made a difference in the risks.
@BethanyAnne: I’ve treated three cats for kidney failure at home. Two survived far longer than the vet predicted. The third was poisoned by melamine-adulterated food and went downhill fast.
BethanyAnne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I was so lucky to get 2 more years. Suli was a real trooper. I couldn’t manage to inject her properly at home, not even with a helper.
Another Halocene Human
And what do people on fixed incomes do when they have to take their animal to the vet?
They can’t. They either have to beg others to pay or they try to get the vet to do the procedure for free.
Vets who don’t own their own practices, that is, newly minted vets, are in big trouble right now. Enormous student loans and not much income to pay them back.
I have a good friend who works for Banfield. She is very depressed and looking to change careers.
Jebediah
My dogs’ vet is related to a very famous music producer, yet neither of my dogs has a recording contract. Oddly, they don’t seem bothered by this at all.
BethanyAnne
@WereBear: I want another kitty! But I’m in a small apartment with 3, and the one that basically lives on my bed is so much happier with Suli gone. I thought they got along, but its like Cheyenne finally can express herself now. So I content myself with paying more attention to her.
Walizonia
I think it’s funny that no one seems to make the connection that vets provide a llevel of care very similar to human medicine at a fraction of the cost. Why do you think that is? Hint, it’s not all about the lawyers. The neighborhood I live in doesn’t have a single doctor in it. Wonder why?
Anne Laurie
Just in case you come back to check on your post, MM — Remember, thirty years ago pregnant women could smoke & drink (“to relax”), seat belts were for sissies, car seats were an exotic rich-people fad, and I’m not sure bike helmets for kids had even been invented.
Pet care books from that period said cats lived to be maybe eight or ten (or two, for outdoor-only cats) and a six-year-old dog was elderly. Now we feel cheated if our beloved companions don’t make it well into the double digits.
We’ve all gotten soft, and IMO this is a good thing.
Ilia
@Andrew Abshier, DVM: lol no offense but the kind of people who go to vet school definitely don’t make the cut for medical school. Stick to the spaying and neutering.
Jebediah
@Ilia:
lol no offense but only a dumbass thinks saying “no offense” negates the insult that follows.
WTF was the point of your comment? A working vet took the time to make a detailed, informative comment germane to the thread. Did it really make your day that much better to lob a gratuitous insult at him?
Ilia
@Jebediah: You’re right, I apologize. I just resent the fact that we’re spending millions of dollars on intensive care for animals while we have people in our inner cities dying of dental abscesses that can be treated with $4 penicillin. And before you cry “false trade-off”, we wouldn’t have people spending this money on their animals if they didn’t consciously think there was no better use for their disposable income. History will not judge us kindly.
Jebediah
@Ilia:
I would like to think that if there were an easy way to do so, most people would be willing to contribute some money towards medical care for financially-strapped fellow citizens. I know there are free clinics here and there, but not nearly enough of them and probably under-staffed and under-funded to boot.
On the other hand, we know there is a sizable contingent of Americans who treat “I got mine, fuck you” like a sacred oath.
You’re right. For this, and plenty of other reasons, history will not judge us kindly.