First of all, I love dogs and bunnies and can even occasionally stand cats, especially the cheetah that my friend “adopted.” talk about CUTE!!!
My families 3rd Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier’s name was Molly but when someone was sick, she turned into Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, lying by your sideetc, etc.
But this thread isn;t about the history of WSLer’s various and sundry pets, it’s about pet health care. I was just reading the thread about how much you would spend on your pets health and some of the stories just made me step back and go WOOOOOOOOOOO.
Surgery to repair a torn ACL and miniscus? In a dog???
I’m not trying to come off as cold hearted or anything, but I think it’s getting to be a bit ridiculous at times. A friend of mine spent over $60,000 and 1 1/2 years on chemo and radiation treatments on his German Shepard, including having the right frong leg amputated and an artificial one put on and he had the dog put down 2 weeks ago.
$50,000!!! Out of his pocket, no tax deduction, no insurance, just keep on writing the checks.
You could buy 2, good cars for that much and still have a good bit left over for gas.
It comes down to good quality of life and the problem with that is that you can;t tell if the animal in question has good quality of life.
Do you REALLY believe the vet when they say that your pet isn;t feeling any pain? I’m not saying that the vet is a quasi-sadist, but how do they know?
When I cried he purred, rubbed his face against mine and tried to make me feel better.
At a time when I wasn’t sure I wanted to be on the planet anymore he kept me here. I had to get up every day to take care of him.
He’s always been there for me and the way I see it I owe him as much. Money really doesn’t enter into it.
Now, you can say what you want about me, how pathetic my life must be if all I have is a silly animal. But the above is truly what I feel. I know others don’t form attachments to creatures but that doesn’t make it wrong that I do. I know I’m in for a lot of hurt when I lose him but I wouldn’t have missed having him for the world.
When I was 14 our dog got hit by a car. The guy who hit Rex kept going, and after my mother raced down the road, caught him, and chewed him out for not having the decency to stop to see if the dog was ok, she returned home and put Rex in the passenger seat and took him to the vet.
The whole way into town she was crying and telling Rex “I’m sorry! We love you but we can’t afford to fix you and we don’t want to have to put you down but we’re going to have to…Oh, Rex, we’re going to miss you so much…”
And then Rex kinda got up on his front paws and put his head on my mother’s chest and just LOOKED at her.
I’ve always had dogs and I’ve always loved them. But the way I feel about my Golden Retriever, Maggie, amazes even me.
I am childless by choice, and I free admit that all the maternal feelings I might ever have been capable of are being channeled and expressed vividly in my relationship with my dog. She fills my heart to bursting, I feel nothing but perfect happiness in my relationship with her, uncomplicated by a single negative feeling or thought. I love her face, her smell, the way she sighs when she is settling down to sleep, the way she whinges and wiggles when she meets someone new, the way she presses her head between my thighs when she greets me in the morning or after I’ve been away. I love to watch her bark at the bird shadows, chase her ball, and sleep on her back with her paws in the air.
She is the single greatest source of tender calm, peace, and love that I have in my life. I don’t know if she feels anything like love for me, and it doesn’t matter. I rejoice in the love I feel for her. (I am engaged to a man I adore, but my love for him is not quite so calm, perfect and uncomplicated. Can it ever be with a human being?)
And I’m completely ok with that.
stoid
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, we greatly err. For the animals shall not be measure by man. In a world older and more complete, gifted with extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings. They are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth"
I’m sorry to offend all you animal lovers out there, but I’m with WSLer on this one. While I’ve always sought Vet care for my animals when they have been injured/diseased, I have never had unlimited funds to spend on their welfare. Tough. They are only animals afterall, despite my need and love for them.
And if HALF the money spent on Vet care/pet food in the first-world countries could somehow be redirected to Human medical care in the less-developed nations…
I used to think I felt exactly the same way, “she’s just a dog”. Then Lady got hit by a car. She was just a puppy and amazingly it only cost me a few hundred dollars to fix her up good as new then. Now she’s 12, and each trip to the vet is costing me $250 - $400. Doesn’t seem like a lot compared to $60,000 but it’s a lot to me. But you know what? I can’t not do it. I can’t look at her face and refuse her anything. After all these years, she’s still so happy to see me, and she doesn’t care if I’ve put on weight, or if my hair is a mess, or about any of the other things people get wrapped up in. After all this time, she still wags her tail and runs up to me and is just as enthusiastic about her greeting as she was the first day I saw her.
The way I look at it, my pets are like children that will never really grow up. They will always be dependant on me to provide the things they can’t get for themselves. They won’t ever get an education and move out of the house and fend for themselves. As long as they live, I will have to provide food, and a home, and love and medical attention. And as long as I’m able to, I can’t live with myself if I neglect to give her something she needs because it’s more convenient for me not to. I could use the $300 bucks I’m going to pay the vet for something else. I could go shopping or pay bills or just wallpaper the house with money, but how can I deny her medical care, and still call myself a good person?
Will I take out a loan to pay for her vet bills? Will I beg, borrow, or steal to make her better? If I have to yes. Would I continue to spend money on her if I’ve been told that she’s suffering and in pain and that she’s not going to get better? No, because then I would be just as selfish. I’d be keeping her alive because I’d miss her.
Lady is my beautiful, floppy eared,Cocker Spaniel/Golden Retriever mix. A few weeks ago, I though she was going to die. We found a lump on her chest that I was immediately convinced was cancer (thank God it’s not cancer and she’ll be fine). She has arthritis and she is constantly getting ear infections, but generally speaking - she’s ok. Over the past year I’ve probably spent $2,500 on the dog. I could have purchased so many things with that money, but I wouldn’t trade one look from her beautiful sweet face for anything.
Silly, stupid, wasteful? I don’t think so. If I were in her shoes, I’d want it done for me. She loves me unconditionally, she’s been a good friend to me and to my whole family. She’s been a part of my family for as long as some of my nieces and nephews. She’s in the family album, and she’s a full fledged member of the group. I can’t remember not having her as a part of my life. Simply put, I love her, and I’d do anything in my power to help someone I love.
I think I could probably sink unlimited amounts of money into my cats, Conan and Schrodinger, if I had the bread. However…
My kid sister is a veterinary technician, in pre-vet school, and she’s told me a few things…
And here in Vegas, rip-off capital of the known universe, when my mom’s late cat Muffin had kidney failure and we took her to the vet, said vet tried to persuade Mom to sink several thousands of dollars into dialysis, saying Muffin would have great quality of life, yada yada. Mom called Sis and conferred. Sis said, maybe Muffin would get an additional six months, max (the cat was probably about 17 years old), and that her quality of life would be OK at best. Mom had Muffin put down, and cried for a month. (I didn’t cry afterward- I cried when it became obvious that Muffin was seriously ill and probably a goner, but after she died, I was OK with it. Of course, Muffin and I weren’t that close, and Mom had had her for fifteen years)
Now, if one of my cats were to become ill or injured, but I had a reasonable guarantee that after treatment or surgery, kitty would have a long happy life, I’d happily max out the credit cards. And yes, I would pony up for prosthetic limbs.
But $60 K for the German Shepherd, sounds to me like a vet taking advantage of a pet-owners emotions and unnecessarily prolonging the dog’s pain in order to finance his/her next vacation.
Oh give me a break! It’s my money and how and where I choose to spend it is my choice. I could probably make the same assurtion you made but instead about people who drive BMWs or buy designer labels or spend their money on botox injections or hell, even, video games because that ain’t my thing, either.
But again, it’s their money.
When I got each of my animals, I made a pact to take care of them, feed them, tend to their needs and make sure that they are safe and loved.
So, when my pitbull was even throwing up the water he just drank and I was terrified that he was suffering from dehydration so I took him to the vet where they thought he had parvo but $600 later diagnosed him with a sick tummy and sent him home with some tagamet, I considered it money well spent.
Where I will agree is that yes, there does come a point where you are throwing good money after bad. Quality of life is what it’s all about. If the animal is not happy and the owners are only trying to prolong its life to alieve their own feelings of guilt or that they are in denial that their beloved pet is going to die…that’s a different story. Otherwise, I say give your pet the best care out there.
Actually, funny this has come up on the boards since I and my pooch were some of the interviewees for this article recently in the Washington Post.
Thank you, WSLer, for standing up and having the balls to say what I was thinking when I read the thread you are refering to.
Sure, I like animals as much as the next guy (assuming the next guy doesn’t like animals too much :D), but like I said before, salvage value= replacement cost- 50%. The cold reality is that dogs and cats have a zero replacement cost. Life is frequently harse and unforgiving on the wind-swept alkali flats of the Great Basin.
Vets who would encourage someone to submit a aging cat or dog to chemotherapy is a crook in my opinion.
I had a similar thought to Kambuckta’s. When I read some of the figures of cash folks were “throwing away” (my opinion), I estimated you could pick a random homeless dude in downtown LA, put him up in a flop for 2 weeks, clean him up, put him in a thrift store suit, buy him a bus pass, print him a “resume” and find him a minimum wage job. He would get his first check before his pre-paid stay at the flop, and from then on, he’s on his own!
Sounds like a wiser use of financial resources to me. (but Trishdish is correct. Folks can do what they please with their own money)
I’ve often wondered this myself. Even feeling no pain can be a misery, though, for example, how the life of my puppy would have been if I’d spent $50,000 to have neurosurgery that didn’t work and got her one of those doggie-on-wheels thing you’ve seen and had her trying to wheel around the yard in that contraption with no control of her bowels. She wouldn’t have been in pain, because she was paralyzed, but it would have been a misery. And much as I loved her and cared for her, if the vet had given me 80% odds of good recovery for $50,000, I think I still would have decided to put her to sleep. Now 80% odds and $5,000, I coulda swung that. Yes, that amount could feed and clothe a dozen homeless. Let the first person with no habits or wants that end up racking them up in the thousands at the end of the year cast stones away.
If you read the other thread you’ll see that most of the people stating they would spend large sums of money added the caveat, with a reasonable chance of a good life. No one said they would go off and spend $60,000 without a thought.
In that other thread, one of the posters equated what you were willing to sacrifice with the level of your commitment. Another poster suggested that the amount you were willing to spend depended on your own emotions and guilt, not the feelings of the pet. But the concensus seemed to be that most pet owners didn’t mind spending as much as tolerable for the well-being of their pets.
And I think animals can project pain pretty well just by looking at you. If you’ve never seen it, you wouldn’t know what I mean.
Like? Are you sure that’s what you meant to say? I mean, normally, you’re compulsively going onand on about hating cats (yet again) Oh yeah, ya hate dogs too.
UH-huh.
On the OP. … My oldest cat has been with me longer than any single other relationship so far has lasted (I’m not proud of this, just honest about it), and she’s spent 10 years snuggling with me on the couch and proudly bringing me particularly wiggly bugs she’s caught. I’d spend as much as I could possibly afford if the prognosis was good, and count it money well spent. That said, the most I could afford right now would be about 5,000$, but I don’t think those who are better off and who make their choices accordingly are wrong.
I do feel, for both humans and animals, there comes a point where you have to decide if you are gaining more than you are losing when the prognosis is not good. For myself, If I’m in a position to decide I hope I know when it’s time to let go, for both my pets and myself.
I would spend as much as I possibly could on care for my pets, but I would not prolong their lives with chemo, diabetes, or other life threatening/horrible quality of life illnesses. They have the right to be let go when it’s their time, IMHO. I live in chronic pain and wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, much less my beloved pets.
My dad grumbles about $50 vet bills for our cat. My boyfriend’s parents will gladly plonk down thousands for their three cats. Part of it is that their family is much more attached to their cats than we are, and part of it is that they can easily afford it. We see our cat as a cat; they see their cats as part of their family.
IMO if you’re living in poverty, spending tens of thousands to save your pet - no matter how much you love them - just isn’t viable. However, for those who can easily afford it, it may be well worth the money to increase the duration and quality of their pets’ lives.
It has saved me a bundle over the last year and half, with my Great Dane puppy having been bitten in the face by a pit bull, having fallen 50 feet over a cliff (and only scraping up his back), various digestive disorders, neutering (yes, it was covered). The list goes on and will continue, and for 12 bucks a month, it’s totally worth it.
I’m very suspicious of the phrase “They’re only…” etc. It’s fine to assign a monetary amount as to what you’re prepared to spend on your animals and I’m not criticizing you for it. In all honesty however, I think it’s important to recognize that it’s a value judgment that you’ve made and has nothing to do with the intrinsic worth of a life be it a dog, or cat, or person.
I think that my part of my discomfort stems from the fact that historically that phrase has often started “They’re only blacks” or “They’re only Jews.”
I have two dogs, and completely understand someone spending a mint to save a pet’s life. I am most likely one of those folks who’d do the same, provided (as others have said) that saving the dog would allow him/her to have a happy, healthy life…
My complaint is that when I made the decision to have one of my dogs put down recently (because she was 12 years old, and neither happy nor healthy, it seemed), it was like pulling teeth to get my vet to agree to it!
Instead she was given various varieties of medications for depresson, anxiety and psychosis (nothing was working), along with tranquilizers both oral and intravenous (sp?)–the general theory was that her physical health problems (usually excessive vomiting; the most recent incident involved gallons of blood gushing from her rectum) stemmed from stress.
Yet every time I asked the vet if she might be better off if I put her down (since none of the meds seemed to be working, and it would be impossible to eliminate all of the things that were causing her stress, such as the existence of other animals on the planet), I was ignored (this was the worst part–I mean the doc never even acknowledged my question, even to disagree with me) and she was given new psychiatric meds.
So this is my question (honestly, no flaming, just curiosity) to any vets or vet techs (or SOs of vets, friends of vets, mamas of vets…) here; what gives with this sort of “keep the dog alive at all costs” brand of medicine? Why is euthanasia hardly acknowledged as an option? Or is this just my limited experience (with three different vets)?
My first thought was that perhaps these vets were covering their asses; what with all of the ridiculous lawsuits that get to court these days, perhaps they feared that I would later sue them for letting me put my dog to sleep when she could have been saved?
Perhaps it’s just that my vet is having financial difficulty and doesn’t want to lose clientele?
At any rate, as any dog owner can tell you, it’s a tough enough decision to make without having to YELL at your vet to get him/her to acknowledge your intentions…
I love my dog, as I loved my dogs before her. But I differentiate between animals and people. Fortunately, I have never faced the situation where I had huge medical bills for an animal - or a person - I loved. And I see a distinction between a large bill for vet care for an acute condition that would likely result in full recovery, especially for a young animal. As opposed to costly long-term care for a chronic condition.
Color me inhuman (or whatever epithet you prefer) - but I can definitely imagine a max vet bill for my dogs - maybe $5G, while I would spend my last cent for my wife or kids.
Of course, if I had a chronic condition, and a low quality of life, I would not want my family to bankrupt themselves merely maintaining me if I had no hope for recovery.
I’m not gonna tell you you’re a horrible cold heartless person or anything. Obviously we just see the world differently. But I really don’t know what to say to somebody who thinks a new car is more important than a living, breathing companion for whom you’ve agreed to be responsible.