GrowerGaz95
Well-Known Member
ID spend my last bean on my dogs, money is no object when it comes to my baby's house isnt a home without a K9 
How much would you spend on your dog?
- Thread starter PungentPete
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Old Thcool
Well-Known Member
We had to make the call on our dog last year. He was 12 so ... we talked to the kids, we told them that his condition was not great, he was pretty old and surgery was along shot and super expensive. As sad as it was we had to put him down.
Palmerrdgrower
Well-Known Member
I’d treat our dog just like a child no different
lokie
Well-Known Member
It's a hard decision to make.
We had to put down a pet. The Vet diagnosis was more drugs for "maybe" a few more months of existence.
I say existence because I know she was in pain all of the time and mobility was laborious for her.
The treatments would have cost big $$$$ and there was no certainty her condition would improve at all.
It was a hard decision but I do think it was best for her. When I left the Vet that day I felt vulnerable and alone. I cried.
I have 2 of my terriers on CBD oil, one for aches and pains and the other for seizures. I was able to get her off Keppra. It's helping them a lot.
If you start them as puppies they are a lot cheaper but they also charge by breed as well. I was surprised you got such an expensive quote.
tangerinegreen555
Well-Known Member
We bought a miniature pinscher in 1988, a couple months after I bought my house and got married.
At 2 years old he got bladder stones. It cost around $450 for surgery. I remember telling our old vet if it ever happened to me, could he remove them?
But he got them again. They were calcium oxalate stones, of course the kind you can't fight with a different diet or drugs.
They did kind of an episiotomy cut at the base of his penis because a male dog's urethra is a sharp angle and our vet didn't want a stone to jam there and the dog couldn't pee. So he peed kinda like a girl dog but he still lifted his leg. Most came out of the new hole.
Then he got kidney stones. Now that required a specialist in Pittsburgh and was way over $1500 in the mid '90's. It was the middle of winter and when we brought him home he had to go out in the snow with this huge cut and stiches that weren't healed yet. Every surgery was heartbreaking. The dog wasn't comfortable for weeks of recovery.
I called the breeder in Missouri and asked WTF was up with my dog always needing surgery to stay alive. She said she 'may
have made a breeding mistake with that litter'. May have? She offered to sell us another one in the future at a reduced price. I declined and never contacted her again.
He died at 11 years 7 months. I was fucking crushed. By that time, he had stones all through him again. He was diabetic. There were like 7 other things wrong with him and he was having seizures. The vet said they could try to get his blood sugar under control but it would be expensive and involve a long hospital stay. And he still had all the other problems.
Towards the end my daughter and I were eating alone one night. We had some little lobster tails and gave a couple to our dog.
He was dying but it made him happy. He went into amother seizure a week or 2 later and never woke up.
Everybody was fucking crushed, he was such a nice little dog.
So now it's the year 2000 and our dog is dead. So we called the president of the Miniature Pinscher Breeders Association who had a couple minpins available in Maryland. This time, we drove the fuck out there and looked around to make sure it wasn't a puppy mill.
She had a very nice and clean house. It was big and had an entire finished basement with kennels full of show dogs. The lady competed on the major league dog show circuit.
She had a 2 dog litter 6-8 weeks earlier. That's a small litter but one of the dogs was oversized beyond what you could compete in a dog show. Too big for breed standards.
So we brought him home. Within a couple years he was sick all the time. He would go into closet and lay on his side and look like he was trying to run. His paws would hit the closet door making strange sounds.
We took him to the vet. It took months to diagnose. He had MRI's, CT scans, blood work they sent out of state, all kinds of tests.
They decided he had the opposite of AIDS. He had an over active immune system that attacked his own heathy body. They put him on different drugs but nothing worked.
He went into a seizure he never came out of in 2007. We had to put him down while he was still shaking from the seizure that was off and on for 2 days.
Fucking crushed again. That ended 19 yrs. of minpins with non stop medical issues. And enough vet bills to buy a Mercedes.
We only get shelter dogs now since 2007.
No use buying some breeder's problem dog and setting up for more heartbreak.
One of our shelter dogs was a pure bread AustraIian Cattle Dog. We loved her but she also died young.
Our current dogs are mixed breed shelter dogs.
I'm scared to ever get another pure breed dog with papers. Those papers don't mean shit when they get sick.
At 2 years old he got bladder stones. It cost around $450 for surgery. I remember telling our old vet if it ever happened to me, could he remove them?
But he got them again. They were calcium oxalate stones, of course the kind you can't fight with a different diet or drugs.
They did kind of an episiotomy cut at the base of his penis because a male dog's urethra is a sharp angle and our vet didn't want a stone to jam there and the dog couldn't pee. So he peed kinda like a girl dog but he still lifted his leg. Most came out of the new hole.
Then he got kidney stones. Now that required a specialist in Pittsburgh and was way over $1500 in the mid '90's. It was the middle of winter and when we brought him home he had to go out in the snow with this huge cut and stiches that weren't healed yet. Every surgery was heartbreaking. The dog wasn't comfortable for weeks of recovery.
I called the breeder in Missouri and asked WTF was up with my dog always needing surgery to stay alive. She said she 'may
have made a breeding mistake with that litter'. May have? She offered to sell us another one in the future at a reduced price. I declined and never contacted her again.
He died at 11 years 7 months. I was fucking crushed. By that time, he had stones all through him again. He was diabetic. There were like 7 other things wrong with him and he was having seizures. The vet said they could try to get his blood sugar under control but it would be expensive and involve a long hospital stay. And he still had all the other problems.
Towards the end my daughter and I were eating alone one night. We had some little lobster tails and gave a couple to our dog.
He was dying but it made him happy. He went into amother seizure a week or 2 later and never woke up.
Everybody was fucking crushed, he was such a nice little dog.
So now it's the year 2000 and our dog is dead. So we called the president of the Miniature Pinscher Breeders Association who had a couple minpins available in Maryland. This time, we drove the fuck out there and looked around to make sure it wasn't a puppy mill.
She had a very nice and clean house. It was big and had an entire finished basement with kennels full of show dogs. The lady competed on the major league dog show circuit.
She had a 2 dog litter 6-8 weeks earlier. That's a small litter but one of the dogs was oversized beyond what you could compete in a dog show. Too big for breed standards.
So we brought him home. Within a couple years he was sick all the time. He would go into closet and lay on his side and look like he was trying to run. His paws would hit the closet door making strange sounds.
We took him to the vet. It took months to diagnose. He had MRI's, CT scans, blood work they sent out of state, all kinds of tests.
They decided he had the opposite of AIDS. He had an over active immune system that attacked his own heathy body. They put him on different drugs but nothing worked.
He went into a seizure he never came out of in 2007. We had to put him down while he was still shaking from the seizure that was off and on for 2 days.
Fucking crushed again. That ended 19 yrs. of minpins with non stop medical issues. And enough vet bills to buy a Mercedes.
We only get shelter dogs now since 2007.
No use buying some breeder's problem dog and setting up for more heartbreak.
One of our shelter dogs was a pure bread AustraIian Cattle Dog. We loved her but she also died young.
Our current dogs are mixed breed shelter dogs.
I'm scared to ever get another pure breed dog with papers. Those papers don't mean shit when they get sick.
Singlemalt
Well-Known Member
American German Shepherds apparently are prone to alot of problems due to inbreeding, he'll very likely develop hip displasia the vet said. As it is I spend about $100/mo on eye meds to prevent him from going blind from pannus (an immuno-mediated disease). The meds don't cure it, just halt the progression. Fortunately, he doesn't mind the daily squirt of ointment into his eyes; I'd hate to fight daily with a 100 lb GS
Check out Vitality Science. They have a all-natural protocol for hips that might work. Definitely cheaper than surgery. Lots of great testimonials
bulla
Well-Known Member
I have over 20 dogs my cheapest was around $1200 for the most part I do vet care at home but if I get in a jam and need a vet I don't really have a price on whats to much to spend my dogs make me a lot of money so why wouldn't I spend money on them is my logic . biggest vet bill so far was about $2500 on a dog that had cancer after paying out the money I got the news the dog prob wouldn't make it much past another year but I could chance it with kemo ….I bailed out on the dog it was 18 months old I never hooked it with another female and I wasn't willing to pay $5000 plus for kemo on a $2000 pup that wasn't guaranteed to live .I feel some times its best to just throw in the towel on the other hand if it was one of my producing dogs I probably would have chanced it and just retired the dog …..this is one of my stud dogs PETEY named after my brother
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Old Thcool
Well-Known Member
Oh yeah the tap was running pretty hard. Not the first and now it seems won't be the last unless Bugsy outlives me lol. It's good for kids to prime them for the sad but inevitable circle of life and death. Seems the older we get the more friends and family we bury.It's a hard decision to make.
We had to put down a pet. The Vet diagnosis was more drugs for "maybe" a few more months of existence.
I say existence because I know she was in pain all of the time and mobility was laborious for her.
The treatments would have cost big $$$$ and there was no certainty her condition would improve at all.
It was a hard decision but I do think it was best for her. When I left the Vet that day I felt vulnerable and alone. I cried.
Old Thcool
Well-Known Member
We do feed our animals high grade raw pet food though, they get the best of everything! We will not feed our kids shit food so why feed our dog or cat shit food! We used to feed them bagged food and our cat got renal failure. The vet insisted we buy their special expensive pet food or the cat would die. My wife and I thought why not switch Billy over to Raw? He lived for 6 more years with the occasional bout of renal issues, which we attribute to the damage previously done by shit food. 2 years after we switched the cat we took Billy to the vet because he had a urinary tract infection the vet asked " is this the same cat?" because he looked healthy and was full of piss and vinegar, he should have been dead! The cat lived 4 years past that and died at the age of 22.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
^^
Working from the heart there. LOL
shrxhky420
Well-Known Member
I spent 5k on my cat... I'd have to do at minimum the same for one of my dogs... but not all of them. I ain't got 25k. Fuck, I looked into pet insurance. Holy fkn shit! Ok not bad if you have 1 pet, I still have 3 cats to consider on top of the dogs.
SH420
SH420
Jimmyjonestoo
Well-Known Member
Got me curious. 100 bucks/month to insure my dog.