Vets are very $$$$

[D L and K's Mom]

Took our new littel kitten in today for her first visit. Baci (Italian for KISS) was a stray we adopted. Ok visit for today $153.00 and she has to go back for some more shots!! YIKES. We also have to have her spayed next week. I love pets, (we have another cat Apollo, and a dog Indigo) but WOW are they expensive. Please take this opportunity for a moment of silence for Sapphire the Beta fish I brought Sapphire home from school this week so she would not freeze in the building. Sapphire was eaten by the new kitten and now I have to find a duplicate Sapphire so my first grade does not know she has gone to that great big fishbowl in the sky.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Oh no about the fish. And yes, vets are expensive. We have 3 cats (2 are kittens) and 2 dogs so we are broke. One of our kittens is named Apollo (and the the other Venus) and of course Tigger and Belle.

 

[D L and K's Mom]

We have an Apollo too!! We had Athena but she passed away last year. She was the best lap cat ever. We adopted her from the animal hospital right before they put her to sleep.

 

[Tjaleks]

I'm sorry about your fish.

We just lost our Hunter (my poo eating Shepard) on Monday . I took him to the U of I vet clinic last Friday and they charged me over $350 for an ultrasound (our local vet didn't have an ultrasound machine) and said it would cost between $3-4K for surgery. With the U of I , I had to pay before they would let me leave with him. Our own vet did it the surgery for around $200, unfortunately there was nothing they could do for him. The best thing about my local vet is they haven't even mentioned payment once. When I do finally get the bill they will take payments. They understand our pets are a part of our family and think about them first, not the money.

 

[salmoneous]

A few years back, my parent's dog needed surgery to remove a tumor. The bill was about $850, which seemed high. By a weird coincidence, Mom then developed an almost identical tumor. Total meidcal expenses on my Mom - $23,000. Suddenly those vet bills started looking pretty darn cheap! Luckily, we had good insurance (and both Mom and dog came through with flying colors).

 

[roliepolieoliefan]

Sorry about the fish.

You think pets are expensive now, this is nothing, just hope when they get older they don't get sick or need some type of surgery or medicine. Now thats expensive!

 

[golfgal]

Our vet isn't nearly that expensive! Dublin has had 3 check-up/shot visits to the vet and one other visit for a sore rear end and the 4 visits combined are less then $150. She will get spayed next month but I don't know the cost on that.

 

[kldmom2000]

I can totally sympathize!!! Last year our vet bills exceeded $2500...our 8 yr old cat (Anastasia) was diagnosed with FVAC (cancer caused by the rabies vaccine) last July-she had surgery to remove the tumor and a large amount of surrounding tissue... we're hopeful it doesn't come back again.... then in October, we decided to adopt another kitten from the MSPCA so our 2 human girls would have a cat to grow up with since our 2 cats were older and didn't want anything to do with kids.... Annabelle (new kitty) brought home an upper respiratory infection and gave it to Anastasia (the cat with FVAC) so that required a trip to the vet for Clavamox... 3 weeks later, Noel (our 11 yr old cat) started having trouble breathing. I took her to the vet. They did an echocardiogram on her and ran some other heart tests on her thinking it was heart problems as there was fluid in her lungs... turned out to be advanced lymphoma and she was deteriorating my the second... I held her as they put her to sleep Hoping for a less expensive and kitty-cancer free year!!!!

 

[JESW]

Oh I hear you! We have two kittens who are almost 6 months old and they were in the vet this week to get caught up on their shots before being spayed next month. One of the kittens also needed antibiotics for a lingering snotty nose. AND we had to take one of our cockatiels in this week also and now he is on antibiotics too! Real fun trying to get the medicine in his beak!

Jill

 

[jacksonsmom]

Oh yes, pets are very expensive.

My cat, Charlie, had a brain tumor. Total vet cost was over $1,500. It would have been way more if we did any chemo, but because of the location of the tumor nothing could "cure" it so we just treated him with steriods until we knew it was time. We put him to sleep Jan. 13th, 2005

Then our newest cat, Herbie, we adopted him from the shelter just last September. He had to have emergency surgery to unblock him. Total cost was around $2,000!! We are still paying for that surgery!
The emergency hospital wanted all the money up front so we ended up charging it.
Luckily the treatments our local vet did allowed me to make payments. I owed them around $600. I am so thankful that they allowed payments.

Yep, pets are spendy....but they are SOOOOO WORTH IT!!!

 

[Pixiedust34]

We had to take our former dog to a vet cardiologist. $$$$.

 

[Tiffann4k]

Wow your vet is cheap! We spend twice that amount for one cat trip to the vet ( regular visit, shots etc ) Guess its time for me to find a new vet

 

[pixiemomma]

Yeah, it was about $500 for us to have our kitten's first shots and have her neutered. My husband clutched his heart and told me the big one was coming. I told him, hey, education is expensive, especially 12 years of it. Worth every single penny though.

 

[cyndibelle]

we are lucky..we pay nothing at our vet for anything..hubby takes care of all his computer stuff..so we get it all for free..even kenneling while we are on vacation....

 

[Tigger&Belle]

We had to take our former dog to a vet cardiologist. $$$$.

I know what you meant, but I had visions that your dog turned into a person.

 

[gallaj0]

You might want to look into pet health insurance. I just signed up for our cat and greyhound; they are both covered for about $30 a month, and I got the upgrade that covers regular checkups and shots. It works out cheaper overall, and spreads the payments out over 12 months.

 

[escape]

You might want to look into pet health insurance. I just signed up for our cat and greyhound; they are both covered for about $30 a month, and I got the upgrade that covers regular checkups and shots. It works out cheaper overall, and spreads the payments out over 12 months.

We can't get it in my area.

 

[ckay87]

I kind of sympathize with vets. They perform medical procedures on living things because...well, that's their job. But medical procedures are expensive. So they have to perform a balance between doing their job and not losing money. I just don't think vets are getting rich.

But I know what you mean. We just spent $600 on our doggie because she needed an IV w/hospitalization (over a weekend and during a snowstorm... cha ching!)

The key is to find a vet you can trust. Our old vet would say things like "let's just make her feel better, an x-ray is too expensive at this point." She would even throw in a shot or 2 for free. She treated our guinea pigs very cheaply because I think she knew that nobody was gonna shell out a lot of money for a guinea pig.

 

[kayeandjim00]

With two cats and a dog the vet is definitely a chunk out of our budget every year but our vet if fabulous! I feel it's money very well spent. Our three are all fairly young now 1,1, and 2 so it's just the routine stuff and occasional little things but we were just talking about how expensive it could be the other day as they get older. We were recently having a conversation about this because we were considering boarding the dog for our next trip and one of the questions on the form was what amount would we authorize for care and we really couldn't think of an amount that would be so much we'd say to put her to sleep. Unless it was the best decision for her. I'd be in debt like crazy but I can't put a price on them. Maybe pet insurance would be a good idea so you can have less unexpected expense if something happens.

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

I have literally spent several thousand on my Golden Retriever. Only half of that was spent in one fell swoop - thanks to her swallowing a jumbo Carmex lid. The rest was spent on illness, shots, spaying, teeth cleaning and microchipping.

Pets can be very expensive. At least you're taking care of yours! There are so many in rescue that are heartworm positive, from simple neglect.

By the way, I have a one-eyed Betta that I will let you have. Mom is still hanging on for dear life.