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How much would you spend to save your pets life?

5K views 44 replies 33 participants last post by  Jen2010 
#1 ·
Is there a limit to what you would be willing to spend? Obviously if I was rich then there would be no limits, but my limits are what I have in credit. Altogether I probably have about $10,000 that I COULD spend. I would spend all of it for either of my dogs.

I don't want to sound mean, but I wouldn't spend that much to save my cat. As much as I love her I think my limit would be around 5-6k.

If it was an elderly animal then I would most definitely not spend that much. I won't ever put my dogs through chemo. I guess it would depend on the outcome of the treatment. I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars to get a few months more of time with my dogs.

What would you realistically spend?
 
#2 · (Edited)
For me a lot of it is about probable outcomes and quality of life. I'm not going to put an elderly dog through anything stressful or invasive, so palliatives only there. For a younger dog, I can't really think of a super expensive procedure or treatment that doesn't also come with a lot of suffering and risk, either from the disorder/disease/injury, from the vetting, or both. If the pain is going to be prolonged or the prognosis is poor I am inclined to opt for euthanasia, and making the dog as comfortable as possible in its remaining time if the euthanasia is not immediately called for.

Something like managing a disease with meds can add up over time, but as long as the dog is doing well, that's fine. And if you have to go to an e-vet for something like a blockage or bloat that can get awfully spendy as well, but I don't have a problem paying that, since the recovery is generally quick, if the dog is going to recover.

Maybe I'd shell out for something orthopedic, I guess? I've been fortunate enough never to have a dog with joint problems beyond osteoarthritis, so I'm not really up on what's being done with that nowadays, or the costs and benefits involved.
 
#5 ·
Maybe I'd shell out for something orthopedic, I guess? I've been fortunate enough never to have a dog with joint problems beyond osteoarthritis, so I'm not really up on what's being done with that nowadays, or the costs and benefits involved.
I worry about orthopedic issues. Hopefully none of my dogs need hip replacement or anything. Ryker's lineage doesn't have hip issues, but I don't know if Gypsy's parents had any issues. A very distance relative of Ryker's had to be euthanized at age 7 because of pancreas issues.
As much as I have... currently I only have 1000 dollars saved up.
If circumstances were to come up there is always accounts you can set up where people can donate money. I would always been willing to donate for any member of this forum.
 
#4 ·
So far, I've spent about $1000 for a 14yo dog :)

@jade5280 - If you have the cash saved up, don't overlook chemo or radiation. I haven't had to explore that option, but everything that I've read suggests that the impact on quality of life is minor, compared to people... Worth discussing with your Vet or Oncologist. Dogs seem to handle the treatments MUCH better than we do.
 
#6 ·
It would depend on outcome and quality of life. We have pet insurance which will cover $1500.00 and I have an emergency line of credit with about $10K. I couldn't really think of anything that would cost more than that and the quality/quantity not coming into play, but for a good outcome at his age I would spend it all.
 
#10 ·
...for a good outcome at his age I would spend it all.
^^^ That sums up my feelings perfectly. Realistically, Snowball is 10 but is still in excellent shape.... if he needed a highly invasive procedure but had a good prognosis, I'd at least consider it. But I'm not going to give the okay for invasive and risky procedures to extend his life if there is a large risk that he will have no quality of life after.
 
#7 ·
It depends on prognosis and the experience for my pet as much as cost. I probably wouldn't spend $100 on a procedure with a 1% chance of success, especially if it were very invasive, painful, or had a long recovery or bad side effects. But I would drop a pretty substantial wad on treatments or procedures with a decent chance of a good outcome. I would go so far as to say I don't have a hard upper limit at this point in my life.
 
#8 ·
Depends on the dog's age and prognosis. If the prognosis was poor, I wouldn't be willing to spend thousands on treatment. Same for an old dog. Sometimes it's kinder to let them go.

For a young(ish) dog with good prognosis, I would spend everything I've got. I would max out the credit card and dip into savings. Our savings is also an off-set account for the mortgage though, so I can't safely say we would spend it ALL (hubby might put his foot down there), but I would spend a LOT of money for my dogs. They are my babies.

I can't imagine what sort of treatment would cost more than what we could pay for with the credit card though.
 
#11 ·
I was thinking about it because a coworker just spent 5k on vet bills for their cat today and I was talking to another coworker about it who said she was pressed to spend $400 to save her cats life just a few months ago and anything more she would have euthanized it.
 
#12 ·
I used to adopt and house hospice cats and with them I was willing to spend for fluids, UTI (single issue that is resolved with atbs with no invasive procedures), and little things like that, but anything over $150 and I would euth them.

We spent $1,000.00 on the BF's cat in November for lump removal (may have been melanoma but was lucky benign). She's only 9 so spending the money on a surgery that was minimally invasive and needed wasn't an issue. For the hospice cats I would never have considered it.
 
#13 ·
Well I spent $4000 on an elderly dog with a failing heart to hospitalize her she ate about two cups worth of sand. She was a bichon and doing very poorly anyway. I took her to the emergency vet with the intentions of putting her to sleep. I was devastated but she was in very bad shape anyway. Well the nice lady vet talked me into hospitalizing her and she did save her but it took four days. And then she died from heart failure two months later. I would not repeat that again.
So I've spent up to $4000. I don't know how much I'm able or willing to spend currently. I'd have to put it in the credit card. Hindsight being what it is, the older the dog, the less aggressive treatment I'd seek and less money id be willing to spend.

Cookie had three emergency trips this year (all due to choking due to her megaesophagus dx'd at the last e-vet visit) and each visit was around $400. Hopefully now that I've got a good system worked out for feeding her those trips will be few and far between!

Short answer is it all depends.
 
#14 ·
There is no limit for what I would spend on Jasper or Mason. Whatever it took honestly. However I would always keep this quality of life in mind as well. I would take out more credit cards, care credit, borrow, loans from banks, etc.

Jasper had a lot of issues from 5 months to 12 months old. Urine problems, Pano, etc. I spent $5,000 in vet bills in the first year and that does not include annuals, or puppy shots.
 
#15 ·
When we adopted Argos, we didn't know his age but the vet says around 5. We believed he was closer to 10 before we took him to the vet though. Since getting him I've realized that adopting older dogs is definitely our "calling" dog-wise. No puppies or 2 yr olds for us. So we are looking at probably more dogs over a lifetime and more health problems, rather than one dog that lives 12 years with one big health problem at the end, we might have four dogs with four big health problems or more. Realistically we probably would max out around 1000 but I don't think there are any veterinary services in this country that cost 1000 euros. Our last dog who died of ehrlichiosis was under constant veterinary care, tests, blood transfusion, etc for a month and the total was less than 200 EUR.
 
#17 ·
I can tell you what we DID spend on Cameron over about 6 months. First we had 4 days of critical care hospitalization at the emergency vet for pneumonia #1: about $3000, then there was 3 weeks of double antibiotics at about $500. Next we had emergency hospitalization for pneumonia #2 @ $3500. We were going to stop there, but we got talked (guilted) by friends into going to UC Davis for further evaluation. He had a rhinoscopy, bronchoscopy, a head CT and a chest CT, and was prescribed more expensive antibiotics. That rang up at another $3000.

When we took him back for an evaluation of his progressing ataxia they wanted to do another CT scan, an MRI of his head, and ultrasound and a lumbar puncture. At that point we decided to stop torturing him and ourselves and we declined. All in all it came to about $10,000.

I would do the hospitalizations again, but I'm not sure the whole UC Davis experience was worthwhile.
 
#18 ·
I would spend as much as I can without getting myself in trouble. I would not spend all my savings and I would never go into debt for it. As much as I love my dogs and as much as I care about them, even more so about Sookie who helped me through a lot of difficult times, I would not give everything I have for them. This might sound selfish...However, we do have enough savings to afford any care they need.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Like others, money isn't really the primary consideration in my mental math when it comes to this. It has to do with the prognosis and quality of the animals' life. I know circumstances dictate an upper limit for most people and I don't judge where other people come down on that decision (barring things like euthing for minor, easily treatable and common issues), but for me -

Age and health of the animal and expectation of prognosis are more important than cost. Also individual dog and the nature of the issue; Bug blows an ACL I'm less likely to do surgery than if Molly or Thud does because of their activity levels and how secure I need the fix to be to hold up to them just living life.

And I would go into reasonable debt for it, but I wouldn't spend like my retirement savings or mortgage the house to pay. There IS an upper limit, it's just that that upper limit is really freaking high because of my somewhat privileged circumstance. If I needed 75 grand even if the outcome was 100% that the dog would live another 10 years without another issue I probably *still* wouldn't do it - because I couldn't. But that's really not likely.
 
#20 ·
Like others, money isn't really the primary consideration in my mental math when it comes to this. It has to do with the prognosis and quality of the animals' life. I know circumstances dictate an upper limit for most people and I don't judge where other people come down on that decision (barring things like euthing for minor, easily treatable and common issues), but for me -

Age and health of the animal and expectation of prognosis are more important than cost.
Ditto I'll spend any amount if the quality of life will be good after. but I'm not going to spend a ton of money to have my pet suffer along just because I don't want them to go.
 
#21 ·
Good question, it all depends. My son's dog has incurred over $10,000 in vet bills in 6 months for treatment of Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia, and I don't know how much more his treatment will cost in the future. His maintenance meds are $200 month, his periodic transfusions are around $1000, however he is not in any pain, and his quality of life is good with treatment. They spent Christmas week with me, and I can't see stopping treatment as long as there is a chance he can recover. If he was in pain, or not enjoying life, it would be different. I had insurance on him, thank God, but that has been exhausted months ago, and now we pay as we go.
 
#24 ·
I also have high deductable and high limit insurance on my dogs....

I had been lucky mostly until 2007. One of my dogs came down with an auto immune disorder. He was fine on tuesday, a little off on Wednesday, Thursday Morning I took him to the vet. He was crashing. Long story short from Thursday to Sunday I spent in excess of $3800 bucks. He passed Sunday evening.... He was gone before we even got some of the bloodwork back.
 
#22 · (Edited)
I have no idea. I have an upper limit. I'm young, single, just bought a house, etc. I really can't spend tens of thousands on vet bills. I will readily spend thousands though and have this last year on Mia and Summer.

A lot depends on quality of life and age. Summer, for example, is having seizures. We could do an MRI to figure out what's going on but it is about $1500 and really all it would do would be to tell me yes or no on a brain tumor. And if it is a tumor then I would not put her through surgery and chemo/radiation. To me it is pretty pointless to spend the money on an MRI when I know I'm not going to treat her differently. We'd still be giving her meds to treat the symptoms and that's all.

Now on the other hand if it were a broken leg or something then yes of course I'd pay that same $1500 in a minute.

Mia has a collapsed trachea and the surgery can be around 5k. I still am not sure what we will do if it gets to that point primarily because I have researched and most my reading and first hand accounts have shown that the stint surgery doesn't last long and has so many complications... I'm not sure I'd put her through that for the sake of a few months.... I am hoping it never comes to that and if it does then she has lived a full life before it does. But it breaks my heart to think about. I do not want to make that kind of decision with Mia.
 
#31 ·
A lot depends on quality of life and age. Summer, for example, is having seizures. We could do an MRI to figure out what's going on but it is about $1500 and really all it would do would be to tell me yes or no on a brain tumor. And if it is a tumor then I would not put her through surgery and chemo/radiation. To me it is pretty pointless to spend the money on an MRI when I know I'm not going to treat her differently. We'd still be giving her meds to treat the symptoms and that's all.
We had a similar situation with a cat. She had a low WBC count and our vet urged us to take her to the local vet school for additional testing. The vet wouldn't give us any ideas about the possible diagnoses and/or treatments (which I can understand). After some googling, I decided not to have the testing done as most of the outcomes were unfavorable or would have required a lifetime of treatment. A big part of my decision was the cat's temperament: The 20 min drive there would have been torture for her, the exam and testing would have been torture for her, any recommended treatment would have been torture for her. She lived until she was about 16 and never seemed to have a bad day until her last two weeks. Certainly I wish I could have had many more years with her, but not if those years came at the expense of her happiness.
 
#26 ·
I spent $1500-2000 on my previous dog's allergies. He (Mickey) was 3 years old at the time. But my previous vet seemed to care more about money than anything and did all kinds of tests and things but nothing worked. And Mickey would get to the point where he scratched himself 24/7 until he bled. Anyways, 1 dose of Benadryl and it was all gone. I couldn't believe it.
 
#27 ·
For me, it depends on the dog: the age & their health and what "saving" means. I have a 12 ish year old dog. I couldn't put her through brain suegery but I could, with Ginger as she is 4. Boone is almost 9 so I'd do it for him, too.
 
#28 ·
due to the lack of quality vets I have to say no for anything that needed skills. I spent 4K for an elderly animal who went into surgery strong, was strong during surgery for them to do what they needed and then spend time examining the health of all her organs for her age, she came out of surgery fine, woke up went out to pee with me.. I left her in their care because of the snow storm thinking I wouldn't be able to get her back in 1 1/2 hours away , thought at least she would have a great start post surgery IV ward off any infections .. and they couldn't even recognize server side effects from rymadel 3 days twice a day given to her, she was paralyzed and in kidney failure un able to eat.... Her eyes were ruby red and bulging, like they were filled with blood... for me it would be best to let them go and not let them suffer further in the hands of others....
 
#29 · (Edited)
Depends on the prognosis, if the odds are good and there is a strong chance of a good quality of life afterwards...

Savings, credit, any expendable income in the budget and anything that isn't nailed down that can be sold. The TV, game systems and luxury items are replaceable. My pets are not.

At that point, I would have to swallow my pride and ask friends and family for loans. But I'd rather never reach that point. And likely, anything requiring that probably would not have good odds or prognosis, so it likely wouldn't occur.

My chickens, I would not do this for. They'd end up in the freezer.
My goats, not that far either... Though I've already driven out of state and paid for a surgery to save my Wether (neutered male goat).

But my Dog & Cat... Yes. Fortunately, my Husband feels the same way.

I will have a bare bones house and empty pocket book before I'd have a dead dog or cat, so long as the outcome ensures a good quality of life and the animal is at an age and condition where it is reasonable to try.


If the prognosis is bad and the quality of life is expected to be poor or the odds significantly against them... Or they're very old already and surgery / treatment is more risky... Then I would have to make a rational decision rather than the emotional one and let them go.

(eta: There are certain conditions / treatments I would not make my pet undergo, however. Chemo is one of them. I have extensive personal reasons for this, but its one thing I will not put my pets through. And whatever it is, I'd have to really have faith in my vet.)
 
#32 ·
It depends on the possible outcomes.

We've shelled out thousands for our current cat because her liver nearly failed 3 times in 1 year.

She's older and healthier now and given her age then I would do it again. But if it were to happen now, we know that it be more humane to euth.

The last treatment involved 6 months of force feeding a pissed sick cat and the vet told us 1 more time and she'll need a new liver.

It's been 4 years since then and she's holding strong but I'm not going to do a liver transplant on a 6+ year old cat when the chance of failure, rejection and pain will be through the roof.
 
#34 ·
We are really lucky that we have awesome pet insurance coverage, so cost isn't really a factor for us. What is most important to us is the possible outcomes and the quality of life. If they both are poor, then I feel the kindest thing to do is to let the animal be at peace.
 
#35 ·
I'd do my best to do what was right for my pet. Our 11yr old, indoor only, cat got ill last weekend. She looked fine, acted fine but we knew she was different. Took her to the vet & left her so they had time to examine her well. Vet initially didn't find anything, told them why we thought she was off & that she had stopped eating for 1.5 days. We did labs & xrays, turned out she had right side plural effusion (fluid all through her chest, in the chest cavity basically). Lacey was loving, sweet & purred like crazy, she doesn't purr much & never so you an hear it..another indicator we felt something was wrong.

Much testing, trying to get her to eat, some fluids as well as her drinking on her own, the vet did a tap to get some fluid for biopsy. Her chest was too opaque on xray due to fluids to see if there was a tumor or what was up. She stayed at vet overnight, next day the vet said she was sleeping more but again, didn't seem in distress. We could she was fading, just not herself. After 30hr at vet she had yet to pee even though she drank more. While waiting for the pathology on the chest fluid biopsy (pathology) to come back we made our decision. She was tired, she no longer was purring or meowing when talked to, she just seemed ready to go. But the whole time she wasn't in distress, seemed very content actually.

The pathology was inconclusive but all differential diagnosis were not good & was happy we did right by her. We tried to figure out what was wrong ($900 bill), we paid attention to her body language & her overall. My husband went to be with her while they put her down, he held her in her fave position (like a baby) & she was very content & let the sedative take effect. when time for the last med. my hubby & vet both said she went peacefully & really seemed ready. Had she seemed stronger & more like herself, we would have done even more if the prognosis seemed good but I was not about to let her final days/hours be painful & miserable. RIP Lacey.
 
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