Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler My Dog & vets

My faithful dog and companion of 11 years started limping on one hind legs, went to the vet.. left and it cost me 500$ didn't find out much from them except after xray and examination he might have arthritis they gave meds for him, they also wanted to remove the tartar in his mouth.. $900 for that. Last year it cost me 1200$ for his pancreatic attack.. I really believe they really overcharge way too much and do unnecessary tests for extra $$, that being said, I feel this might be the beginning of the end for my pouch..

Are you going to an emergency vet?

Tell me about it - I have 4 cats!!

A visit to a vet certainly provides an insight into how much it costs to do medical procedures on humans.

That's why our Medicare Program, as wonderful as it is, unfortunately is relentlessly bankrupting us as a country. Soon to be experienced south of the border as well...

TAM

Sorry to hear about you companion, from one dog lover to the other I understand, I would do anything for my dog.With that said Vets are the worst. My dog was hit by a car I rushed her to the vet, I knew she was a gonner but they convinced me to try all options to the tune of 500.00. She died 10 minutes after I took her in. On top of that 200.00 to cremate her.

I hope your pouch feels better, cold weather is tough on all of us

I just lost my dog yesterday. She's was 13.5 years old. About 4 months ago, we wanted to get her teeth cleaned (not cheap, but it's good for the dog's health). Unless a dog had been trained to deal with that kind of "personal space" invasion, the procedure requires to the dog to be under anesthesia. Because of her age, the vet needed to do up a blood panel and general physical on her before judging her fit for the procedure. The result of those routine tests was that we discovered she had a heart murmur and that her kidney function was declining. The vet's prognosis was that we were looking at a a few months to 6 months more.

Because she'd already lived a full life, we decided not to throw money at the problem since her quality of life still good -- as it was pretty much up until her last day or two. In the meantime, we started feeding her a special (homemade) low-protein diet that her vet prescribed to slow the decline of her kidneys.

Last night, after my son's 10th birthday party was over, I was getting ready to read my daughter a bedtime story when she asked me, "Is Sunny having a bad dream?" I looked over at her dog bed, expecting to see my dogs legs twitching as she dreamed abut chasing squirrels, but instead I saw she was having a full-blown seizure. I sad down with her and cradled her head in my lap as I tried to explain to my daughter what was going on. It lasted for almost 90 seconds.

When the spasms stopped, I knew her time left with us was short. It took her a couple minutes to regain consciousness -- the vet later said her brain was literally rebooting during that time -- and when she did and tried to get up, she flailed a bit, then finally rose and walked around the room in a drunken-like daze. I tried to get her attention but she was not really aware of my presence until much later, and then when she noticed me it was as if she had no idea who I was.

She eventually did stop walking around and bumping into things and recovered to the point of recognizing us again. My wife contacted the vet and we took her in, knowing we'd probably be saying goodbye that night. And indeed, there was no good news at the vet. We decided to euthanize her so that she wouldn't have to go through any more seizures, and possibly fall down the stairs during a post-seizure daze.

Sorry to hijack your thread. The feeling of loss is still fresh, and I still haven't left the "need to share" phase of my grief coping. Hug your dog, and keep an eye on his quality of life and always balance the money you spend on him against that.

Peter, I feel so sad to hear that Sunny is gone. She was like a member of the Axiom family over the years.

The loss of a pet is very sad but remembering them and their uniqueness can be a joy.

We've had more good experience with vets than bad. I think vets are more honest and dedicated than human doctors.

Our nearly 12 year old "Lizzy" beagle came down sick and our vet diagnosed a tumor. He operated and removed a tumor the size of a 3 lb frying chicken plus part of her intestine. Total cost just $440. She lived just 10 days short of another 3 years. Funny thing is near the end she would only eat roasted chicken. She preferred dark meat so we ate the white.

Bill

We have, as one of our many pets, a little 2 year old and 5 pound Pomeranian. She basically tried to kill herself so many times by eating toxic things when she was little. If my estimated math is correct, in the first year, we dropped over $3500 on emergency vet visits. Ugh.

Peter, I feel for you.

Throughout my life, the hardest things that I've had to deal with so far is the loss of a pet. It really hits me hard. I guess that it's because I tend to prefer the unconditional loyalty & company of our 4-legged friends more than many of the nasty 2-legged creatures that I've run into over the years.

I swear that I'll never get another pet, but when I see the beautiful 'rescued cats' in the cage at our local Woofies, I can't bear to see them go without a home. So, at the moment we have 2 recently acquired younger rescued cats & 2 middle aged cats that were abandoned a decade ago in our neighbourhood. They decided to adopt us.

They all bring great joy to our lives, except when the vet is involved...

TAM

Find yourself a better vet. We were pleasantly surprised by the compassionate and understanding care (both for the dog and for us!) that we received from vet we had just met at our local emergency vet clinic. She didn't try to push us into any decisions, but just gave us the facts, and completely supported us when we decided it was time to say good-bye to our dog. Our costs that night were $600, which covered the diagnostic tests, euthanasia, and individual cremation. We opted for the more expensive "disposal" service because our kids didn't have a chance to say their good-byes. We'll spread her ashes along the Allegheny River up in PA where we've spent a lot of time together.

I find that cost to be completely reasonable. We were lucky, though, that Sunshine was an inexpensive dog over her lifetime, medically speaking.