I just spent $1500 to give my cat Tommy a sex-change operation. He had a persistant urinary tract blockage so the vet had to remove his penis and reroute his urethra through a new opening. We now call him Tammy.
Emilio Lizardo, are prices that much higher in your area? My cat had the same surgery for less than $200.
MisterThyristor, the actual surgery was maybe 1/3 of that total. The rest was a weeks worth of hospitalization, x-rays, blood tests, catheters, etc. It doesn’t surprise me at all to discover that my hospital is pricey; but they do good work and I trust them, so I am loathe to change vets.
Actually, for that procedure, $1500 is a pretty good price. Anesthesia to put in a urinary catheter, the catherisation itself, IV fluids for a few days, monitoring afterward to see if he blocks again, kidney enzymes a couple times a day to watch for renal failure, films to check for other problems that would cause him to keep blocking, hospitalization, and the surgery itself. It all adds up.
Keep in mind, a cat usually has to block two or three times (which mean two or three seperate urinary catheters and a week or so of fluids) before we resort to cutting off the penis.
My brother has spent thousands on cat surgery.
I just feel like,
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The day my kitty costs more in surgery to keep him alive than to give him some rest, well, there’s a lot of kitties out there.
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My girlfriend came home from work one day and said hello to the newly-adopted beagle-shepherd mix, who came innocently to the door with her usual greetings. She (the girlfriend, not the doggie) put down her purse and briefcase and looked around…
That’s odd…where’s the wicker chair? I didn’t move it, did I? Could the dog have moved it?
Quick look-around. No wicker chair to be found, but a few telltale strands of wicker fiber scattered around on the floor.
Hello, Dr Vet? My dog ATE A CHAIR. Yes, I said a chair. A wicker chair. No, she ate the WHOLE CHAIR.
Dr Vet says: Watch for lethargy, vomiting, diarrhea, or bleeding. Hold all food and water, and see how she does.
Ms. I-Ate-A-Chair lived through this and is still among the living. (She’s a venerable 15 years old now and her chair-eating days appear to be relegated to her puppy-past)
Which comedian is it who tells the story of deciding not to get expensive surgery for his cat: “It’s not that we don’t love you, Fluffy, it’s just that kittens are free.”
my dog as a puppy jumped out of the second story window of our house thinking it was on the same level as the ground floor bay window and broke his hip …and the surgeries only got worse from there… but I love him.
A few years back I spent over $3,000 on my cat who went into liver failure. She very nearly died and was hospitalized for over a week, and fed through a tube for several weeks…
the happy news is that she is perfectly healthy today! I consider it money WELL spent and would do it again in a heartbeat.
I freely admit that the same thought crossed my mind, but I’ve lost two good friends in the past four months, one to an electrical fire and one to a drug overdose, and I couldn’t bear to let something else I love die when it’s within my power to save it.
well that was lame. Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/666u
If my cat, Wally, had any kind of disease or illness that I could spend money to help him fight, I would do it in a heartbeat. I don’t CARE how much money it is. I adore this cat, and I want him to live. He is my favorite cat of all time, and he should have the longest life it is within my power to give him. I will weep mightily when he dies.
That say, the instant a vet says, “It’s over, and his quality of life will begin to decrease from this point out,” I will begin to think about euthanizing him. Once his quality of life reaches a point where living is no longer comfortable for him, that’s what I will do.
Emilio’s price is pretty much in line with what Fatcat’s cost me. Half of that were the two middle-of-the-night trips to the emergency vet to save him from blockages. Remember, we’re not talking “neutering” were referring to a procedure that requires difficult sutures and a few days in the cat hospital where they are monitored and hooked up to all sorts of tubes.
AHunter you little beast ate an entire CHAIR??? :eek: Ding! You win!
The very reason I now I have to keep my earplugs in a sealed container that the cats can’t get into.
I buy them all sorts of toys but for some reason it still more fun to play with the earplugs.
We have a new ad on TV in Australia for Libra tampons. A lady is rushing around her home trying to find tampons but all the boxes are empty. Cut to male dangling tampon in front of a kitten going “here mousy mousy” and kitten going nuts trying to catch it. Priceless. 
Winston was a half-goldren-retriever half-black lab. He had the long hair of the golden-retriever and the blackness of a black lab. He was also huge, about a 100 pounds and fat.
Winston didn’t seem particularly interested in eating socks. He just liked to move them. Whenever he found a sock, he would pick it up, take it somewhere else, and put it down. Thus, it was common to find slighyl saliva-laden socks mysteriously on kitches chairs, the livingroom coffee table, under the couch, and so on. Once, I was gluing together a part of my dresser that had come apart, and stupidly left the sock drawer on the floor while the glue was drying. Winston moved about a dozen bundled pairs of socks, each one to a different location. I think he really enjoyed watching me try to find them.
Then again, Winston was also quite fond of eating Brillo.
Never seemed to bother him, though.
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Okay, mebbe I’m just too punchy from lack of sleep, but does your mom use the socks specifically for her own stalking, or do the socks stalk on their own?
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Our German Shepard, Jingle (she’s white and we got her around Christmas-time), is getting the new wing at the library named after her.
Librarian: “Let’s see…Charlotte’s Web, hardcover, first 20 pages eaten. That’ll be $24.95. Go, Dog, Go, cover thouroghly chewed, $12.95, Captain Underpants, dropped in a puddle?”
coy: “No, that’s dog drool. A lot of dog drool.”
Librarian: “Um hmm. $8.95.”
coy: “Do you take Visa?”
Boy I wish my kitty ate a sock or a chair or anything! Some of you have been following my hellish week here and I thank you for the support…
I went to the vet yesterday to hear she hadn’t eaten something… she may have kitty lymphoma.
I’m glad your puppy is better!!
I spent about a grand to get my old decrepit minpin checked out because he was losing weight and weak. He didn’t have anything wrong with him other than a couple of rotten teeth, which were pulled and the rest cleaned. He has lost the ability to hold his bladder and bowels (either that or he doesn’t give a shit), and he has ruined the parquet floor in my dining room. When we put him outside, he barks the whole time (didn’t use to do that).
I love him to death, but I’m at the end of my rope. Horrible thoughts of putting him down keep coming up. The joy of his companionship is gone. 
As I review my vet bill and read these other stories, I wonder why we even keep pets. I mean, what do they give us in return? All I can think of is…entertainment, companionship, and undying loyalty.
Nevermind.
I think I’ll get Sonny a large beef bone. He loves those.