Nowt as expensive as a free dog.....

[snapper_37]

Thanks for that Paulus. I wasn't 100% sure what the critera was. So if you're not receiving council tax or housing benefit and are on a low wage, you're in a bit of a mess should the pet need treatment.

 

[Lisa21]

As with all people and all professions there are good and bad. The vet I used to see when i had my spaniel years ago was absolutely fantastic and when she had to be put to sleep he came to my house at 8pm and as I couldnt bring myself to say goodbye to her for ages it was gone 10 when he left. He charged me nothing above his standard fee for euthanasia.

He emigrated sadly, a real loss, and the people who took over were money orientated and rubbish. my friend payed an extortionate fee for learning her dog had major kidney problems and their program of special food and lifelong medication....something didnt feel right and a second opinion elsewhere revealed the bloodtest anomaly was caused by a flea infestation..... cure that and bingo, she was right as rain (dog, not friend) She was also advised to be given aspirin. By the same vet who 6 months earlier diagnosed her as a haemophiliac.

Then my dog was taken there with a limp and as she had had operations on her knee when a puppy i thought it may be connected to that. She had numerous Xrays, and they advised a hip replacement (at a cost ov a few thousand pounds of course) and said that afterwards she would be right as rain. I had lost faith in them and took her to a specialist in Manchester. He wanted to do an exploratory operation as he didnt think the Xrays showed enough to base a diagnosis on.
She had a tumour so big there was absolutely nothing he could do to save her and he put her to sleep whilst under the anaesthetic.She was 5.
He charged for the exploratory operation only. said id been through enough without having to worry about the money too.

Some people are in it for the money, some for the animals, some manage to find a middle ground. there are some very kind people out there but also some who are not.

 

[mac1]

+1 to every word (except the cat bit, we don't have a cat )

+2

 

[Lisa21]

*our 7 year old, one-eared rescue cat who needed his teeth cleaning is actually about 12 and needed numerous teeth removing at a cost of about £300. They were right about his only having one ear though

FFS Baggy....you just got me back for when I made you spit beer through your nose the other day

Although when I had horses I sometimes wondered about £25 (in those days) for "examine horse", which sometimes involved just looking closely at a cut or similar

Tell me about it...Just adjust the £25 a little. and that was from a vet who wouldnt even get too close to my horse as he was "a bit of a handful"
think he realised what that description meant when I saw him hit my boy to get him to move over...he was lucky he didnt need a vet himself

 

[Crackle]

I ditched my last vet because she couldn't communicate. The more I wanted to know the less she wanted to tell me. I don't mind paying but I want proper service not some glib explanations or closed viewpoints, I like to talk things through.

 

[Arch]

Maybe there should be a sort of NHS for rescue pets in the form of group insurance.

I wondered about that. I guess there's as much likelihood of a pet being sick, as a human - if NI can work, then a Pet NI could work I guess.

I always wonder about the cost of drugs though - hearing the cost of human treatments. I know there's a lot of Research behind a new drug that the companies need to recoup, but the cost of drugs seems astronomical, and I assume it's the same for animal drugs.

The one area where animals ought to cost more to treat is the expertise of a vet - doctors only have to learn one species. But then human doctors have much greater specialisms and probably pursue treatment further.

 

[Lisa21]

Ill not put it on here but there is a website where you can buy vetrinary drugs at cost price. All you need is a prescription from your vets which, by law, they have to give. Specially handy if your pet needs long-term meds. I use it a lot and you do save a fair bit.

Vets do tend to keep this to themselves tho, as you can imagine.

 

[Becs]

It would appear that a very shoot day and a bottle of pinot makes me somewhat argumentative!

I stand by what I said (except for getting the sex of the dog wrong, perhaps "it" would have been safer

) but the tone was too aggressive. Of course all vets are not equal, and the corporate ventures (generally anything with "vet" or "pet" in the name and a cheesy logo) are ruining things for owners (and the often the vets they employ) by being too target driven. The rest of us that try to do things honestly and compassionately then get tarred with the same brush, which resulted in many of us, myself included, becoming disillusioned and dissatisfied with general practice.

P.S. Some of the online drug companies are not to be trusted but others are fine. We are legally obliged to give a prescription if asked but we are within our rights to charge for it (usually the same as an NHS prescription).

 

[Paulus]

May I ask what practise you work for Becs? A good friend of my wife now works for a practice in Belsize Park, they both used to work for the Dragon practice in Hornsey before it was taken over.

 

[Becs]

I work in academia now.

 

[Paulus]

Gave up nursing for more money, better hours etc eh?

 

[Becs]

Nope. Moved into academia for a different challenge, before that I was a horse vet, I did work as a nurse in my uni holidays though

 

[fossyant]

I pay quite a fair amount each month in insurance for 3 cats.... two are old. One is young. It's about £60 a month.

It's a fair amount for 3 moggies, but they are all well loved. The two older cats have needed treatment a few times that have added up to insurance payments. The head female cat has had her teeth removed three years ago (it was a long 1-2 year process..lots of drug fees.. covered though) but she is still with us, and can give the 3 year old cat a good 'dress down' despite her no teeth. She is also the most friendly cat, comes and seeks a fuss etc. and sits on our laps.... so despite her rough life medically, she is very happy.

All our 3 cats have been rescue !

 

[Cubist]

Just by way of an update, Bramble has made fantastic recovery from surgery, so much so that the vet could hardly believe how quickly she was back on her feet. The histology results are back and neither tumour was malignant.

The upshot is that we are back on track with a lovely healthy adult dog, the kids don't have to face more bereavement, Mrs C and I can relax now and go back to a normal budget and the vet can cancel the new boat he ordered when we first brought her in.

We asked them for a quote on pet insurance just for a laugh. The answer was £50 per month, with an excess of £69 per intervention, no existing conditions, and a charge of only 15% of any treatment she receives under the plan . We would however be entitled to "generous discounts" on worming and flea prevention.

We did a few calculations and decided it would be cheaper simply to present the vet with a new Range Rover every couple of years.

(Becs, if you're reading this, I gambled on the fact that you wouldn't have drunk any Pinot at lunchtime on a Saturday, and would be able to appreciate a bit of irony.)

 

[fossyant]

Good News