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Permalink Reply by Beth on January 14, 2014 at 9:58pm

One thing I would want to add to this conversation is the necessity of asking "and then what?" at the vet when expensive tests are suggested.  Increasingly, our communities have high-end emergency and referral clinics with fancy equipment.  To some degree, that is a wonderful trend.  The flip side is, they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an MRI machine and now they want to use it.

True story:  a friend had an 8-year old boxer who was getting nosebleeds.  They started out treating conservatively, for infection.  When that didn't work, they did a CT scan.  It was over $1000.  The CT scan showed so much inflammation that they could not tell if there was a tumor or not and the biopsy was inconclusive.  So they suggested an MRI.  She asked the price and was floored and said "And if we find cancer, what then?"  They acknowledged that there was little chance that treatment would make any difference with the type of cancer they'd be most likely to find.

She passed on the test.   How does it help to know if it's cancer or not if you can't treat it?

I read of someone spending $20,000 on brain surgery on a dog to give it an extra 6 months to live.   I would not make that same choice.   When Maddie started having seizures,  my vet said the very expensive CT scans or MRI to check for a tumor would not change treatment unless I planned on doing brain surgery on a dog.  Which I would not do.  So we go with the $8 drugs and so far, so good.  

They are animals.  We can't explain that we are torturing them for their long-term good.  A quick orthopedic surgery with a few month recovery and good prognosis is one thing, but there are many treatments that we have the technology to do but we need to question the ethics of doing them.

So anyone deciding on whether or not to get insurance should be looking at what are the reasonable expected costs of certain likely surgeries (which most dogs still won't need) and build an emergency fund towards that, with maybe short-term insurance as a bridge measure until some savings is built.  

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Permalink Reply by Vicky Hay on January 14, 2014 at 10:34pm

Thank you! It's so good to hear of other dog  lovers who think along these lines -- sometimes I think I'm some sort of barbarian crying in the wilderness. Pouring tens of thousands of dollars into painful, frightening procedures that probably won't do much for the pet seems to me the height of folly. And a cruel scam on the part of practitioners who talk folks into it. :-/

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Permalink Reply by Anna Morelli on January 14, 2014 at 11:31pm

Beth, I couldn't agree more!  I didn't get into the subject because it's a pet peeve (no pun intended) of mine and I can easily get carried away, so I'll be as brief as possible.  Our society has such fear of death that most people will do anything and everything to avoid it for themselves as well as their animals.  Until this subject is dealt with in a better way, we will always be at the mercy of our fears and find it hard to make clear minded decisions such as you advocate.

One of my dogs had bone cancer and they wanted to amputate her leg.  She was a large Malamute, 7 yrs. old.  I declined, not because of the cost, but because i did not want to put her through that.  We kept her pain free as long as possible and then the Vet came and euthanized her right here at my house.  My husband and children know I want no extensive procedures when my time to leave this arena comes.  I simply want to be pain free until my gracious exit.  But then I've made peace with what dying is all about.....and that's every individual's journey.

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Permalink Reply by Linda on January 18, 2014 at 7:53am

My only experience with pet insurance was when we adopted a cat thru a rescue, it came with her.  She began having a problem almost immediately and there were a number of vet visits which they did cover.  A diagnosis was finally made of a tumor on her esophagus and they were now pushing us to renew the insurance on our own before the free insurance she came with expired.  They would no longer cover her for the problem she came to us with..even without them having the actual diagnosis..because it was now considered pre-existing.  No thanks.  Sadly the vet told us that removing the tumor would most likely not be successful so we let her go in peace and dignity.

I am in agreement about not putting our loved pets thru some medical things..it is too much for them.  And in all honesty how many of us can afford to pay out $5K - $10K - $15K....I know I can't.  I know they can operate on Max's neck, but success is not a sure thing and I do not have the $10K+ to pay for that surgery.  Nor would I want to put him thru that recovery...I know what recovery from that kind of surgery entails, I went thru it and I could hardly handle it and he was almost 10 at the time of diagnosis.  Thankfully with acupuncture he is a mostly pain free, happy almost 12 year old corgi.

Almost 3 years ago we took in a young stray cat.  About 6 months after he showed signs of a UTI, off to the vet.  Turned out his urethra was very narrow and crystals were blocking it.  It was not something that was going to go away.  So we opted for what turned out to be a very common surgery to re-route his plumbing so he pees like a girl now...that was $700.  But it was within what we basically plan for in an emergency situation with our pets and one that we knew would give a young cat a long and healthy life.

We all love our critters but we have to balance not only what is really the best for them plus we do have to think about the financial end of it too.  Recently a friend's son had to put his lab to sleep.  A year ago he was diagnosed with cancer in his leg.  They amputated the leg, went thru chemo and it meant borrowing money to do this.  They put that dog thru so much he could not possibly understand and now they are in debt.

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