What Would You Do If Your Dog Was Sick

[W Sibs]

No Pet Insurance would cover Charlie on what he has and all the test that was done on him.

Miss Emmy has pet insurance.

Luckily, the boyfriend and I are in a position where we can look after Charlie without pet insurance. If we didn't, we would take out loans, borrow money from family or sell our stuff... PTS is not an option if he can be saved.

[Guest Tess32]

It depends how much it was. It's not that easy to just go out and get a loan, you've still got to be able to make those repayments, and if it's up to 10k..

[aussielover]

We had a family that recently spent $30 000 on saving their dog. The dog had a paralysis tick and had to be ventiloated for a week. Thankfully it pulled through and is now doing well. The dog was a 12 year old Border Collie.

Obviously money was not an issue for them, but good on them for doing everything for the dog when they easily could have just given up- she must have been a much loved family pet.

[Sunnyflower]

We had a family that recently spent $30 000 on saving their dog. The dog had a paralysis tick and had to be ventiloated for a week. Thankfully it pulled through and is now doing well. The dog was a 12 year old Border Collie.

Obviously money was not an issue for them, but good on them for doing everything for the dog when they easily could have just given up- she must have been a much loved family pet.

How on earth can a vet seriously charge $30k for the dog to be ventiloated for a week? If it honestly costs that much then sure I'll eat my words but that just sounds like a vet taking advantage of distressed people.

[julesluvscavs]

We just had a couple big vet bills recently . We don't have pet insurance, we keep saying we will put the same amount away ourselves, but we never do (because other bills keep cropping up as they do!)

Our vet (altho they are in our bad books atm), have discretely allowed us arrangement of payments to be made over a time (within limited time, and only if you been going to them for ages). So that's what we did with Renae's big vet bill recently.

They also have another system where they can organise a loan through some other lending crowd (not totally sure how it works)?

I would never again allow a dog suffer if there was no hope for it, so as a last resort would have them pts, then spending money on them just to delay the actual outcome for a bit longer :rolleyes:

Edited June 7, 2010 by Jules♥Cavs

[aussielover]

We had a family that recently spent $30 000 on saving their dog. The dog had a paralysis tick and had to be ventiloated for a week. Thankfully it pulled through and is now doing well. The dog was a 12 year old Border Collie.

Obviously money was not an issue for them, but good on them for doing everything for the dog when they easily could have just given up- she must have been a much loved family pet.

How on earth can a vet seriously charge $30k for the dog to be ventiloated for a week? If it honestly costs that much then sure I'll eat my words but that just sounds like a vet taking advantage of distressed people.

The drug they used to keep her under was propofol, which is quite expensive, it is also short acting so needs to be administered fairly regularly. They could have used something cheaper and longer acting such as pentobarbitone (euthanasia solution but a lower concentration) but that would have been more risky, although I know country vets sometimes do it for 1080 poisoning. There were also secondary complications such as aspiration pneumonia which required physio regularly and extra drugs nursing, radiographs etc. The dog had to be monitored very closely- every 10 minutes so they basically had to pay the salary of a night nurse and vet for 7 days. This was at a specialist center in a high income area, so I guess that is just the price you pay, although this practice is known to be one of the most expensive in sydney.

[megan_]

I have pet insurance for both my dogs precisely so that I don't have to face that situation.

but you have to pay upfront with pet insurance and then claim (unless you have one of the very few vets that will accept the insurance paid to them directly).

[Sunnyflower]

We had a family that recently spent $30 000 on saving their dog. The dog had a paralysis tick and had to be ventiloated for a week. Thankfully it pulled through and is now doing well. The dog was a 12 year old Border Collie.

Obviously money was not an issue for them, but good on them for doing everything for the dog when they easily could have just given up- she must have been a much loved family pet.

How on earth can a vet seriously charge $30k for the dog to be ventiloated for a week? If it honestly costs that much then sure I'll eat my words but that just sounds like a vet taking advantage of distressed people.

The drug they used to keep her under was propofol, which is quite expensive, it is also short acting so needs to be administered fairly regularly. They could have used something cheaper and longer acting such as pentobarbitone (euthanasia solution but a lower concentration) but that would have been more risky, although I know country vets sometimes do it for 1080 poisoning. There were also secondary complications such as aspiration pneumonia which required physio regularly and extra drugs nursing, radiographs etc. The dog had to be monitored very closely- every 10 minutes so they basically had to pay the salary of a night nurse and vet for 7 days. This was at a specialist center in a high income area, so I guess that is just the price you pay, although this practice is known to be one of the most expensive in sydney.

I can understand the dog probably needed close attention but $30k is well and truly over the top!! They are clearly preying on the rich.

[cowanbree]

Pet insurance is ok but in reality only for the young healthy dogs and even then the limits don’t cover everything. I have recently spent over $6,000 on one of my dogs so looked into it. Not only was he too old at 9yrs but also the most they would have covered was under $2,000. I have an emergency account for instances such as this but otherwise would borrow it. The one thing I wouldn’t do is allow my dog to live on it pain because I couldn’t afford it and didn’t want to pts – I see this happen quite often.

[Rebanne]

We had a family that recently spent $30 000 on saving their dog. The dog had a paralysis tick and had to be ventiloated for a week. Thankfully it pulled through and is now doing well. The dog was a 12 year old Border Collie.

Obviously money was not an issue for them, but good on them for doing everything for the dog when they easily could have just given up- she must have been a much loved family pet.

sorry my pets are much loved but I wouldn't pay $30 k for them at any age unless I was mega rich

[ozjen]

I don't think there is any blanket answer as each case has to be weighed up on the situation at the time both in regard to the animals wellbeing and the owners ability to meet the costs. I have begged and borrowed money where needed to pay vet bills and also had vets willing to wait for payment but I have also been in the situation of having to put an animal down after running out of avenues to raise cash after initial expensive treatments didn't help. At the time as a single parent with two very young children I had to consider the financial impact on then and my ability to pay people back at a time when I was already struggling. Peoples circumstances change and the level of care in terms of treatment of thier pets (when it involves large amounts of money suddenly) can be affected by this. Did I love my pets any less than the next person, no, it broke my heart but as a parent my children had to be the first priority.

Now with only myself and the furkids to consider I could risk financial ruin and probabaly would down to the last dollar but hopefully I would still weigh up wether treatment was more for my benifit than the furkids and wether they would have enough quality of life afterwards. No one should be condemned for not going ahead with expensive vet treatment to keep their pet alive as everyone's circumstances are different, and change throughout the animals life, how they treat their animals on a day to day basis would be of more concern to me. The level of how much we love an animal is not measured by how much we are willing or able to pay for their medical treatment.

[newfsie]

I would do anything if it would help my dogs, but I would not keep alive a dog who has to suffer, just because i would miss them..........I have my dogs insured, but i would ask, sell or run up an account

[Clyde]

We had a family that recently spent $30 000 on saving their dog. The dog had a paralysis tick and had to be ventilated for a week.

Having nursed at a Sydney clinic in a high income area, and also had my own dog on a ventilator at Sydney Uni from a tick, I find this very difficult to believe.

[Earthdog]

We have an account that gets a regular fornightly drop.

I was talking to a friend who lives in a different area. Both our dogs had the same after hours emergency consultation and surgery. My dog stayed at the vets for two days. Hers was released the day of the surgery. I paid $360, her costs were $1700!!!! Nearly fell over when she told me.

[Greytmate]

We have an account that gets a regular fornightly drop.

I was talking to a friend who lives in a different area. Both our dogs had the same after hours emergency consultation and surgery. My dog stayed at the vets for two days. Hers was released the day of the surgery. I paid $360, her costs were $1700!!!! Nearly fell over when she told me.

You would need to compare itemised invoices to see the real difference.

I would actually be more worried about being charged only $350 for surgery and two days hospitalisation than I would about paying $1700.

You won't get much oxygen, propofol, plasma or many other types of expensive treatment for $350. Hospitalisation is best when the dog is being constantly monitored and tested and given treatment and pain relief, not when it is just put in a cage and all the staff go home at night.

It costs money to provide all that. But sadly, not all vets are set up with the latest vet hospital facilities.

[megan_]

Many cheaper vets don't have anyone staying when a dog is hospitalised overnight, hence the price difference.

[W Sibs]

We have an account that gets a regular fornightly drop.

I was talking to a friend who lives in a different area. Both our dogs had the same after hours emergency consultation and surgery. My dog stayed at the vets for two days. Hers was released the day of the surgery. I paid $360, her costs were $1700!!!! Nearly fell over when she told me.

You would need to compare itemised invoices to see the real difference.

I would actually be more worried about being charged only $350 for surgery and two days hospitalisation than I would about paying $1700.

You won't get much oxygen, propofol, plasma or many other types of expensive treatment for $350. Hospitalisation is best when the dog is being constantly monitored and tested and given treatment and pain relief, not when it is just put in a cage and all the staff go home at night.

It costs money to provide all that. But sadly, not all vets are set up with the latest vet hospital facilities.

Me too, actually.

[julesluvscavs]

We were charged over $700 for Renae staying overnight in a vet clinic, (she only went in about 5.30pm) and she didn't even have the full IV all night for her dehydration, as she escaped out of her cage sometime after the vet came to check her (once) at about 10pm! They found her wandering the surgury the next morning at about 8am!

They did give us some medications (AB's) and a tin of science hill diet food, but I can't understand how it still came to that much!

Edited June 7, 2010 by Jules♥Cavs

[badboyz]

I have a GE Care credit account set up. My first choice vet does not accept this, but another good local vet as well as the nearest ER, do accept it for payment. It has about a $10K limit. If one of mine needed a huge amount spent on it, I would consider PTS as a viable option, depending on the individual circumstances, of course.

[Earthdog]

They were both straightforward ops. No expensive medications or procedures before, during or after the op. I know my vets and the quality of care and service they provide and it is excellent.