There’s life-extension research going on all the time using various animal test subjects. Imagine that a huge breakthrough was just made. There’s a new treatment available that so far, only works on the same species as your favorite pet, whatever that is, and only that species. There’s no sign that the treatment can work on humans anytime soon, if ever. This treatment stops the animal from aging any further, and henceforth that animal will be immune to all age-related diseases and cancer.
If you get the treatment for your pet, then your pet has a good chance of outliving you and your heirs, barring severe accidents.
Say it’s somewhat affordable, about the cost of treating some major illness. Maybe pet insurance would even cover it. Would you get this treatment for your pet?
Me, I think I would get it for any future cats I have. I haven’t yet gotten a new cat after my last ones passed, it was hard letting them go.
Not meant to be a joke or snarky, but in what country? For a few hundred bucks, sure, I’d consider letting my dog live forever. For a 10’s or hundreds of thousands of dollars, not so much.
I guess it depends on your situation. For me, my “heirs,” i.e. children. My dog is almost 12 now, though, and showing signs of arthritis and general malaise (but is otherwise healthy), so I’m not sure I would do it on him and freeze him in this state for the rest of my life, but a younger dog, sure.
For the purposes of this discussion, your country. My recent experience the U.S.: the last few major pet illnesses my housemates had to deal with cost a few thousand dollars each. They only recently finally decided they should get pet health insurance.
The two times I looked into pet insurance, it was a scam.
Has that changed? (it was over 20 years ago)
edit - ‘scam’ I mean but most might nitpick. What I mean by ‘scam’ in this case is you are much better just taking the money spent on insurance and putting it into a savings account. When I looked, there was extremely little, if any, possibility that the insurance would ‘pay back’ more than you put into it paying bills much like those ‘no medical exam required’ life insurances.
But isn’t that just all insurance? For a given population, most people will put in more than they take out. That’s the business model. We have pet insurance, and it’s been fine, but we haven’t had any catastrophic bills. Just a couple of fairly normal surgeries that the insurance paid out, but they’re still ahead on us. But that’s how it is with pretty much all the insurances I carry. My camera equipment insurance is about $700/yr for $20K of equipment, and in 15 years I haven’t had a claim yet. So they’re ahead $10K.
One of my current cats needs some mellowing with age, and also is still learning about being a housecat with humans. So I would maybe consider it after he loses a little more of his youthful exuberance. My other cat had a severe injury two years ago and has arthritis and possibly some other ongoing discomfort. I wouldn’t want to trap him there, even though he’s possibly my best cat ever. Also, he’s an enormous klutz, so he’d likely accumulate more injuries over time. Same basic idea with my dog. She is the best dog ever, but has some physical issues already, so probably not. Also, I don’t want to foist even the best cats or dog on people generations down the line. They never get to pick the kind of dog they prefer? They don’t get to choose not to have cats, even if they are allergic, or hate cats?
I would be much more motivated to do it if it only extended their lives finitely, with a longer time of being in their prime. So, maybe 30 years rather than 12-20 or so for cats (my experience with indoor cats) and 10-15 or so with dogs.
I think it would be pretty awful to just have them live indefinitely.
That is a good point. Not to mention that I see my father, who is in good health, at 88. He has outlived most of his friends. It is sad for him every time he loses another link to his past. How does that work for a pet who might not have the ability to form new attachments once they get past a certain age? Would they just sit by the door, eternally waiting for someone who isn’t coming back?
One of the main reasons to get insurance is the ‘catastrophic’ part of it. Yes, you may not get your money back normally BUT if you do get something expensive to treat, the insurance will be very helpful.
Not the pet insurance I looked at. Didn’t cover a lot of things PLUS was nearly worthless for anything catastrophic. I had to struggle even finding scenarios where the insurance paid more than they received in premiums…ever. I did find a few but they were marginal.
i.e. a scam.
However, that was 20 years ago. Dental insurance used to be a complete and total scam for me (my premiums times 26 (bi weekly) was actually more than they would ever pay out. Seriously. I hear dental insurance has gotten a bit better over 30 years.
Looks like cloning dogs is already a thing, according to the linked NYT article. For thousands of dollars. But this takes away the worry about your dog outliving you, as even cloned pups should have a typical lifespan.
It wouldn’t be forever; each momcat would run out of viable eggs in her ovaries eventually. And we’re already living in a kind of feral kitty apocalypse as it is. I don’t think a relatively small (compared to the total feral cat population) number of immortal escapees would make much of a difference.
Oh, that makes much more sense. I thought you meant human illnesses. My dogs never had any real illnesses to speak of, but I did spend about $4000 (total, for both) on them in a single ER visit.
If this procedure would mean they wouldn’t get sick (even if they eat something), then yeah, I could see spending $2k/dog if it would essentially mean no more unexpected, expensive vet bills going forward.
I wouldn’t. We adopt a few stray cats, give them a good life, mourn their passing and then adopt another cat to give a good life to. Making those cats last a human lifetime or more would end that cycle.
