Monday, November 10, 2008
Dog Drabble
Ok, after reading this, you know where I am at in my "cycle". Not a good day to coax a 60 lb nervous pup to the vet. Not a good day to look at the expense list for his neutering surgery. I brought in my DOG. We love him, but he is not our CHILD. The surgery is expensive enough and I wasn't prepared for the list of extras that they promoted doing and had already priced out on my bill for me. I nixed the ear tattooing ($35), the micro chip (I don't remember the price), and the pre surgery blood tests (90.00 without tax). Yes, I said no to the recommended blood tests to make sure that our pup would be ok under anesthetic. We are a one income family, we have four kids, and we have to take a more balanced approached to our dog care than some do. We cannot afford to do everything for our animals. We pet them, love them, play with them, attempt to train them, give them their basic shots, and feed them good food. But if one of them is badly hurt, and we are faced with the decision about whether or not to put out thousands of dollars to fix them, SORRY, in most circumstances, we choose not to do it. When I am faced with a list of here is procedures recommended for our pup, I say no to some of them because of the cost. Though we dearly love them, they are not people and we do not have the lifestyle to afford to do so. I conceded to the ear tattoo in the end, but left feeling like a bit of a loser for not allowing the expensive blood work. Going to the vet is not my favorite thing, can you tell? I need to find a competent red neck vet that will give me the bottom line on stuff so I am not so torn every time I go in. After I said no to the micro chip, the assistant told me that you don't really need it with the ear tattoo- though that was not mentioned when the bill was first shown to me. That kind of stuff gets under my skin. Can anyone else relate, or am I an evil pet owner?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Pre surgery blood tests? Do people even get those?
i'm lost on the ear tattoo thing? and boy do i hear ya on the expenses and remembering that they are animals for cryin' out loud! i say that now but if it were life and death i know i'd cave.
my hubby grew up on a ranch so in the past we were blessed w/ small town vets who would give us the meds and my hubby gave the shots. i wish more vets would do that! who wants to pay the extra 20/30 bucks just to watch the tech do it?! oh brother.
poor pooch. neutering. how fun!
careful how you explain it to your little ones. my son was in preschool when we got our first dog fixed. he promptly went to school and announced his dog had its testicles removed. tmi...we need to work on how much we say to our kids!
Isn't it ridiculous?! We're in the process of giving our two beloved dogs (a black labrador and a siberian husky) away to people obviously richer than us! When I saw that the "dogs" category in my budget was higher than the "kids" category, I knew that things were getting ridiculous, and we had to make the decision to either go without for the dogs, or to pass them on. After spending nearly $1000 this year on vet treatments for paralysis tick, we have finally made the decision that we simply can't afford to keep them!
Very sad, but perhaps guinea pigs are more in our budget range....?!
(long time reader btw, just don't comment often - commenting is too addictive!)
I heard someone say the other day that they had spent over 3,000 on a surgery on their dog....I was really surprised.
We really loved our last dog...and had had him for 14 years before we had to start making the hard decisions. In the end we had to say no.
I can so identify with your trip to the vet.....and you are right they won't tell you what is not truly necessary.
When it comes to essentials for our family or taking care of an animal....the family wins.
Don't forget to keep their teeth healthy as well. The doggie dentist could be in your future! Let them chew on bones, it's supposed to be good for their teeth. A friend's dog, who doesn't like to chew bones, has to have her teeth cleaned. And the bill for that? At the very least, $200 dollars. Bad teeth leads to poor health (heart disease, etc).
Moral of the story, buy those Nyla-bones. It's cheaper than the dentist.
We won't sink anymore big money on the dog at the vet after her "exploratory surgery" when she was a puppy with a sick tummy turned out to be nothing. I don't trust or like vets in our area. So, all that to say, YOU ARE NOT a MEAN PET OWNER!!! We are with ya!
yah, you don't even want to KNOW how much it cost to sew my mom's dog back together this week.
I have always (and still do) subscribed to the "look, it's not people" philosophy, but when it all comes down to it, I couldn't tell them, "nevermind, just put him down" I just couldn't.
though if I had time, I would have gone through and vetoed any extras they snuck in there.
btw, we have 'vet clinics' in our area where you can get a dog all done for like 35 bux... and shots for supercheep...
Post a Comment