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.

Sorry to hear of you loss I know all too well that feeling. It makes my stomach woosie thinking about that time of loss and your loss. When my dad put our family dog down he wrote a letter to him to help with the grief. I followed his lead and found it to be very therapeutic to do the same.

Richard

Sorry about your lost, I know in a near future I will have to face a similar fate for my little silky terrier dog.

I remember going through what you have and having to make the tough choice in the end to do what was right for our dear friend.

A good long term relationship with your vet is priceless. We are very lucky to have ones (plural since they are a couple) whom we trust and who demonstrate a true compassion for the animals in thier care.

Hopefully yours discussed with you some measures that you can take to potentially help with your pet's condition. For us, a daily dose of glucosamine really seemed to slow down the progress of the arthritis and gave us a few more more happy years.

I wish you and your families all the best.

Just like regular doctors, there are good vets and poor ones. Our 15 yr old adopted tabby was wasting away to skin and bones a couple of yrs ago as he couldn't keep anything down. Basically he was extremely dehydrated, bony, sunken eyes etc. The vets did a lot of "work" on him with little success with the exception of re-hydrating his little body and figured it was mostly his age which was his problem...after spending a couple of thousand at the vet, we found out there was a quiet recall(e coli?) from a pet store on the premium all natural food we were giving him. Tried several other different types of food until we found one he could keep down...we're not sure how much damage that bad food did to his insides a couple of years ago as he's had a couple of minor relapses along the way since, but we always consider the food as being one of the main reasons for his problems. We always feed him the best natural cat food we can find and have settled on one with very, very minimal ingredients which seems to be working. So I'll say, always consider the possibility of a problem with the pet's food if they aren't feeling well and don't always believe everything a doctor/vet may tell you, they can be wrong.

Amen, bruder!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLXnQX18ttU

Over the past 30 years when 'dry' cat food was invented, the pet food industry 'damaged' millions of cats with the contents of these dry foods - namely grains or more correctly carbs. Two of my cats - brother & sister - were both damaged this way in the 1990s.

Cats are carnivores, not herbivores. We've been slowly killing them over their lives with excessive carbs common to this convenient food. About 15 years ago, I researched this on the net & found that after years of consuming these high carb foods, felines develop the same ailments that humans do later in life - addiction to carbs, obesity, diabetes, & eventually thyroid problems (weight loss & always hungry).

Therefore, I changed their food way back then to high protein with little or no carbs - Friskies Salmon Pate & Orijen (made on Alberta) high protein dry food is what we use. All 4 of them thrive on it.

My felines are in such beautiful shape that my vet always asks what I feed them. Seems to work for us...

TAM

I can't remember feeling this sad reading every post in a thread. Each one zapped another exposed nerve. Though sad, I am moved to read so much love and compassion for your "other kids." Peter, so sorry that Sunny's passing is so in-the-moment for you and your family. When you told me you had a dog, then showed me her picture on the boat house dock, I thought, "Gee, maybe he isn't an asshole after all."

Bandit is my 7th fur child. My Dad took care of "it's time" for the first two. I did the next four, alone, who were all brought into the household within a three year period. They lived from 9 years to 17.5 years.

Bandit will be 14 in January, though we have known him his whole life, he has been "ours" for just about 4 years. I have had the same vet (except for 5 years in AZ and TX) for his entire practicing career. He's now 64. Whenever he encountered something that should require a specialist, off he'd send us to the big teaching ho$pital. He never had that "I can do it all" that I have seen in some vets (and doctors).

Even though he has taken care of all 7 dogs, he pulled me aside last week (minor skin issue visit) to remind me that, even though he's in great health, he IS 14 and "they don't live forever."

Gawd, it sounded like "the old lady with the ancient cat" speech. "Hi, Les," it's me, Bob, remember?"

He doesn't remember, because I have never asked him to euthanize any of them. One was found dead when I returned home from work late.... on a Friday, Halloween, in El Paso f'n Texas. The other three exhibited their worst suffering from their fatal conditions after business hours, so each was taken to Boston's 100+ vet, 24 hour, teaching hospital (affiliated with Tufts Univ.), so they wouldn't have to suffer the whole night. In today's $, the last year of life for each cost about $3-4k. (Bandit was 12 when he got $4k cornea replacement!)

It's so difficult on every emotional level, and it never gets any easier. I don't recommend having a pack where they're all very close in age, 'cause the Ten Little Indians thing is brutal, esp. when the first "princess" hangs on to be the final Indian, 17+ years later.

BTW, Bandit has never had dog food, not for the first 10 years of his life when he lived next door with his late DogDad, nor in this house. It costs about $3.00 a day, not counting some treats that have to cost a lot, 'cause they don't come from that animal/baby killin' place, Chiner.

No living thing has evolved to live on processed food, exclusively, (or ever, really), so you can just throw out those bags of DikDik chow or canned food for Monotremes.

My empathy is with all of you who care for and live with another species. Sure there are tough times, but having a single stand-in for the entire animal world living in your home as part of the family is nothing short of astounding, every day!

I never intended to spend this much time, but it's all so close to me. I'll leave you with something uplifting and , umm funny?

When my 15-year old Bull Terrier, Enzo, had to go for that last hospital visit at 1:00 a.m. (he could no longer stand w/o falling over due to a brain tumor), I was assigned to an intern/resident (I don't know how it works to earn a D.V.M.), which, at that hour is nothing unusual.

He was about 25, kind, empathetic and warm. He told me that I was doing the right thing and he had lived to a very old dog age. As he began to explain the two-injection system, I told him I'd done this before. He nodded.

I laid Enzo down and cuddled with him, leaning over. Immediately after the vet administered the 2nd injection, I grabbed his arm and exclaimed, "I changed my mind!" I hadn't planned it, or been lying in wait, it just came out in some sort of in (inappropriate) jest.

The kid went "new lab coat" white. I told him I was kidding. He admitted that this was only his "2nd time" and he lived in fear that someone, someday, might actually do that to him.

"See now that it has already happened to you, with no consequences at all, even a second after the fact, you need not fear it ever again. You will tell this story for the rest of your career, and the telling of it will begin as soon as I leave here, won't it?"

We shook hands, I thanked him, he smiled, sort of, I handed him the cremation paperwork, and I left.

Bob, I continue to amazed at your ability to both display and invoke so many different emotions in one post.

That poor kid is probably still trying to perfect "would you like fries with that?" thanks to you.

That post is a treasure, Bob. Thank you.

Interesting read, told by the dog, Enzo...

Joyce loved that book. It's been sitting on the shelf for years waiting for me to read it.

I resisted as well; I don't do much reading for fun. But once I got started it was a page turner, at least for me.

Thank you, JP. Your opinion means a lot to me.

Your mother never loved you.

My dog has tracheal collapse since his young age, now limps and walks on 3 legs, can't walk down the balcony steps to the yard anymore, so I have to take him down so he can relive himself... I have to consider his quality of life here if his limping doesn't improve, his meds include glucosamine.. will make a vid on him soon..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjo_nzD-0YQ

combined with his other health problems, blocked tear ducts
tartar deposits + gum + teeth and hip problems I will have to spend well over 6 or 7000$, it is his limping that has me more concerned than the other health problems.

Thanks for your amazing post, Bob. When you talked about laying on the floor with Enzo, it brought me right back to the moment -- my wife and I were right there with Sunny -- and then before I could fall into a puddle of tears you made me laugh.

I'm still crying, though, you jerk.

Happy that I could give you a chuckle during such a difficult time, Peter. That's why I'm so popular at wakes!

n.b. I thought it was universally decided that I am NOT a jerk.
Ask anyone and they'll tell you quite plainly that I am an asshole, not a jerk.

Diagnosis confirmed!

In related news, I learned yesterday from a friend that the actor Danny McBride was raised in my county and maintains a home here. Hearing that the wife and I were impressed by his latest portrayal of a royal ... jerk in "This Is the End", my friend went on to say that Danny is actually a nice guy in real life.

He is awfully good at what he does, though, and certainly seems to be typecast ...

He's my hero. Not that I'd be on his leash.