Assuming I wasn’t prolonging his suffering in some way (i.e. doing him a disservice) - pretty much anything I had.
I chose $1000 - $5000, but it really depends on so many factors. If the treatment would heal the pet 100% and they were still fairly young, I would pay as much as I could. If they are older, or the treatment might not work, I would be less willing to pay.
Wow. Is that for one leg or two? Because I spent about $1400 per leg to fix my dog’s ACL (the surgeries were about a year apart). Did I get a bargain or are my dog’s legs going to explode someday?
I spent a little over 5k on my 2-year-old cat Horton when he had a urinary blockage and we were told that our choices for him were surgical intervention or saying goodbye. It wouldn’t have been such a huge bill had it not all happened on a Sunday morning, requiring an emergency vet visit and an overnight stay in the kitty ICU because we couldn’t take him home. It wasn’t a hard decision for me, even though I’m not made of money. He was so young, and this surgery gave him a shot at a normal healthy life, so I did it. If he was a 12-year-old cat, I think the decision may have been different, and much harder to accept.
I don’t think I have a set number in my head, a limit I refuse to cross for pet care, because it’s a situational decision. How much money do I currently have to devote to this problem, how likely is the treatment to help improve and prolong the pet’s life, and how close to the end of that life is he? I’ll admit I have a hard time imagining myself being able to hand over 10k to a vet, but I used to think the same about 5k, until Horton was so close to dying.
I voted $1000-5000, but as with most everyone else, that is going to vary with the circumstances.
Young animal with good chance of recovery? I’d do it in a heartbeat. I have an open end signature loan ready for emergencies. Older pet that will be in pain or poor prognosis? I would (and have) euthanize.
We recently opted to not spend $10 to 20 K on cancer treatment on our 6 year old golden retriever. The vet said the odds were it would extend her life by 2 or so years. We opted for care and comfort treatment until she got uncomfortable, and spent over $500 on her during the 9 month period of her decline. She held her own pretty well until the last 2 days.
I spent about $5,000 in a fairly short time in 2009 for treating osteosarcoma in an 8-year-old Rottweiler. It bought him nine weeks, basically. I have to say they were nine very good weeks, up until the last two days. His front leg, including shoulder blade, was amputated and removing the tumor gave him almost instant pain relief - despite a horrendously huge incision, he was up and trying to run and play 4 days after the operation. Something he hadn’t wanted to do for many weeks prior because of the pain. At three weeks, he was running on the beach and swimming. Unfortunately it metastasized to his spleen about six weeks after that, and he was ready to go.
I wouldn’t go back and do anything differently now, in retrospect…I did the best by him at the time, I believe. However, I would probably not do that again; certainly not for a senior dog. Later in the same year my 9-year-old female Rottweiler was diagnosed with osteo…I let her go shortly after diagnosis. I couldn’t see waiting until she was in unbearable pain…the first dog was a very mentally tough, champion working/sport dog…my female was a sweet, sensitive, anxiety-prone dog and I didn’t believe she’d have been able to deal as well with amputation etc. Plus with osteosarcoma it’s an almost foregone conclusion that painful death is inevitable…I figured, why put her through that?
It’s situational. Depends on the condition, the age and purpose of the pet, and my finances at the time. I ended up paying my property taxes late in 2009 because I was paying for vet bills instead.
+1
I choose not to have pets. I grew up, or rather lived with, up to 3 dogs at a time and loved 'em but then I wasn’t responsible for their medical cost or decisions.
I voted “other”.
Dog: Probably $5k on a good prognosis
Cat: Maybe $200. Any more than that and I seriously have to weigh it against the SPCA pet abandonment fee of $35.
Damn. You’d rather abandon an ill cat than have the vet euthanise it?
We spent over $5k on a poisoned dog (xylitol poisoning); which included a week in the ICU with glucose drip, plasma transfusion, and a bunch of hepatic support drugs. Plus blood work a few times per day.
PSA: Please keep any chewing gum (and other xylitol products) where your dog can’t reach them!
Depends on the situation. My understanding is that SPCA will humanely euthanize if they think they can’t adopt it out… which they won’t be able to adopt out a sick cat… so isn’t that just like paying $35 to euthanize?
500-1000 on a treatment that would extend the life of an otherwise normal, young and healthy animal. I would not spend money on an elderly pet, or on a treatment that would not ensure a full quality of life. Euthanization is kinder, and there are loads of unwanted animals that need a home.
Oh right, I misunderstood your post I think.
Yup, a number of serious acute issues could require days in the ICU, transfusions, etc., pushing the bill up fast. I’m not good on exact numbers for small animals, and it will obviously vary by area of the country, but giving human-level medical care with boarded veterinary criticalists, surgeons, etc., and expensive equipment isn’t cheap. Of course, not everybody wants or can afford human-level care, and sometimes there is a middle ground that maybe isn’t ideal/highest standard of care but has a reasonable chance of giving the pet a good outcome without causing suffering.
I am a vet student living off loans, but I could probably scrape together a couple thousand including borrowing from my parents, maybe a bit more if I can work out a deal to increase my loan amount (eep). There’s not a whole lot of wiggle room living off loans in an above-average COL town. My cat is about 15, arthritic, and not the most compliant patient (even better cat wranglers than I have been unable to get pills into her at times). If she were to swallow a piece of string, need radioactive iodine for hyperthyroidism, or something similar that was a one-time deal, I would probably do it. If she gets any kind of cancer, she gets surgery if that’ll fix it but no chemo or radiation. Anything requiring ongoing oral medication would just be a daily battle with poor results, and I would probably let the disease run its course until she needed to be euthanized. As an aside, I already give her subQ meds for arthritis which cost $60 every few weeks, and last year I spent about $1K on her between air fares and miscellaneous vet stuff, not including the routine medication.
I put $10-20k for my baby Dolly, because I have a $20k limit credit card. I don’t think I’d take out additional loans for her now that she’s 9 (a dog her size won’t live past, say, 13) but I might have taken out a loan when she was younger.
I might have been able to raise money from friends too. Nothing like $30k or even $10k but my dog is my baby and they all know that. They know I’d give them money to save their real babies.
That’s how I roll tho. Dolly and I are co-dependents 
I said $1000-$5000 because I did once spend close to $2k to try to save a cat. She had kidney problems and I was taking her to the vet several times a week for a couple months basically for dialysis. She was only about 5 years old, I don’t know if I would’ve done that with an older cat. Poor thing didn’t survive. 
Vet’s office was really great about letting me run a tab and pay it off as I could.
I adore my animals, but I would limit my amount to 500 to 1K. That would be in addition to our annual $400 maintenance costs, of course. It has nothing to do with how much I value the critters or their companionship. I just don’t see the point of taking “heroic measures” to extend their lives when they most likely don’t understand the concept of longevity. Hell, I think we do too much trying to keep people alive as long as possible. At least with my pets I can make what I believe to be reasonable choices about their health.
I have a lovely country vet with whom $500 goes a long way, too, if I can catch him out of the pasture once in a while.
Wouldn’t the actual cost to euthanize an animal humanely be more than that? If so, you’re basically being subsidized by others who have donated time and money to the SPCA. That seems irresponsible.
We spent $3100 on a semi-feral cat we don’t really like, but there are extenuating circumstances. Firstly, I had to pay $300 for rabies shots for ME after he bit me and we learned the neighbor who had abandoned him had let his rabies vacc expire. I’m counting that cost against his vet costs, dammit.
Then he had an emergency urinary blockage on Sunday night (of course), so we paid to have him catheterized to save his life. It seemed like the right thing to do.
Having paid for it once, we didn’t want to put him down when it recurred a few months later, which would waste the money and effort of the first time. In for a penny, in for a pound, and all that.
Then it happened a THIRD time, again over a weekend.
By the time he was done (fingers crossed!) he’d racked up $3100.
He’s been fine ever since, and he’s gradually becoming social and friendly, but that was A LOT of money for us and I would rather have spent it on one of the loving dogs than a hostile cat we hadn’t really bonded with.