Jeezus. We bought our first dog (still have her), Mira, when I was 6 years old (I’m 20 now). We didn’t have her spayed right away because we wanted to have puppies. BUT, before we even did that, we made sure that we had owners available for any puppies she would have, and we knew the potential owners and knew they would take good care of a dog. After she had her puppies (and all puppies immediately had a home to go to after 8 weeks), we had her spayed.
It breaks my heart when I see a dog or cat that has a health problem or item that needs to be done, and the owners say, “well, we don’t have the money,” or, “it’s just a dog/cat, not a person”… If you can’t afford to take care of a pet or don’t think it’s worth it to take care of a pet, then (this is an amazing concept) Don’t get a fucking pet!!!
I can’t even begin to tally up the vet bills for Mira. She had to have a C-section when one of the puppies was coming out the wrong way and the umbilical cord was strangling him. A neighbour (asshole) poisoned her with rat poison when she was 2 years old, which required a trip to the emergency vet and more surgery. She’s had to have tumors removed (they were benign, but I think could be malignant if left alone. Sorry for fuzzy memories, I was only about 10 when that happened). She has a terrible skin condition (that thankfully wasn’t passed onto any of the puppies. And the skin problem didn’t manifest itself until a year after she had her puppies, so we didn’t know) which requires special shampoo and steroid shots at the vet. She’s deaf. Her eyes need a special ointment to keep from going blind; it’s $400 a year just for that stuff. She tore ligaments in both back legs a year apart; needed surgery for both of those events. She got gastroententeritis (sp?) in March, requiring a trip to the emergency vet and a 4 day stay at our regular vets (MUCHO $$$$). She has daily pills to take and eyedrops/ointment to use as well. She gets special dog food (the regular dog food is okay, but the prescription one helps her skin out and is easier to chew for an old dog *. There’s even more stuff that’s above and beyond basic “food and vet checkups” costs that we’ve shelled out for her. The last time my mom checked, it was over $10Grand (and that was several years ago).
There have been times where we had been saving to get (for example) a new stove. and just when we had enough money set aside, she’d need to get one of those surgeries. My grandma would tell us to just put her down because “she’s just a dog” :mad:. But she’s our dog, and when we got her we took on the responsibility to take care of her as long as we can. If she was continually suffering, yes, we’d probably put her down. But after each surgery, she recovers completely. She’s actually more active than some dogs younger than her (although I know the addition of Ziggy, a 5-year-old adopted dog, has helped with that; competition makes her hustle around. ;)), she has all of her teeth, she can still see, she can still go for walks around the block (about a mile long). She’s just an old dog. She has arthritis, but she’s still able to get places.
As I said, if any dog is in any prolonged pain, then it would be cruel to make them suffer longer needlessly, and putting them to sleep should be considered. But as long as they can live a decent life and they’re doing okay, you bought the pet, you are responsible for the well-being of the pet. If you cannot handle the costs of your pet, then you should look to find a responsible owner to adopt it, and consider NOT getting another pet until you can take care of it.
Wow, sorry for the slight (major) hijack. I guess I’ve had a lot of pent-up annoyances about this subject. 
