What would you spend?

[Hawk]

ok...so I already know the call is coming shortly...as I mentioned in the dog thread, wife is on the way to vet with a sick cat. I know the thoughts and feelings about cats around here...but my question is now...how much would you spend to fix a pet?

and don't take me as cold hearted, I love animals and my little girl is truly an animal freak...but at some point, there has to be a balance between the love and the common sense. This is also a cat that we sort of accidentally adopted...it just showed up one day with a friend and never left.

[Captroop]

Depends on the age of the pet and how much it means to you. If it were a 15-year old cat that's gonna cost $2,000 to heal, what are you really saving at that point? Maybe another year with an animal that's probably just going to be in pain anyway? But $500 to save a 7-year-old cat? Yeah, I'd pay it because you still got at least another 7 years of enjoyment to have with it.

And for reference sake, my cat was one that just turned up too, we didn't adopt it from a shelter, and he has been the best pet anyone can ask for, so I wouldn't use the context under which it came to be with your family as a strike against it.

[The Saltman]

I spent almost 3k for my dog when she had pancreatitis. GL

[Hawk]

I hear ya captroop...threw that in because this wasn't an animal we planned for or really even wanted. that being said, he is now part of the family and we don't think of him or treat him any different than the other animals.

[sunbunny]

One of the stray cats around here had a kitten I ended up hand feeding. I got so attached to him from feeding him around the clock. I even had to do the cotton ball thing to get him to go to the bathroom. I named him squeaker.

Squeaker got to where he was running all over the house, but he was just a little tiny thing. Maybe 4 weeks old He got up underneath Henry, and Henry stepped on him. Broke his leg.

It was gonna take surgery and something like $400, maybe more, to fix him. I didn't hesitate to write the check, and this was when only Chris was working after I had my heart attack. Money was beyond tight, it was almost non existent. He was so tiny, he didn't make it through the surgery. I still do not regret the money spent trying to save him. Actually, I don't think our vet ever deposited the check. I need to check on that.

[PanthaSan]

If it costs more than a .22 round, well, you can figure that one out....

[88 Bronco]

Animal age and your finances are a factor. Also what is the quality of life for the pet after the procedure should also be considered. Dropping a couple thousand on an old pet that can barely get around is not a wise decision.

[Hawk]

quality of life after is the biggest driver for me....I'm pretty sure both these cats are barely over one year old. I have no issue spending money on them, my daughter loves them. If it is something they can do to make him better and he'll be able to run around like a little cat should, then I'm all in. Seems really weird that he went from doing so well to so poorly all of a sudden like that though.

[Johnny Rockets]

Sorry to hear about the cat Hawk.

What if they came back and said the cat has <insert ailment here> but it is $1800 to fix it? Without it the cat won't die but won't get well either (like a severe break that needs surgery)...what do you do then? It's not like you can say no and you can't ask to put the cat down either could you?

My personal limits would be something like:

$1,500 on the dog

$32.96 on the cat

My cat has already cost us about $300 since we got her at Christmas and I have already prepared the kids that the cat has reached it's maximum payout and is on it's own from here on out.

[Hawk]

ya, my fear is probably not far from reality....it goes like this...

we can't be sure what is wrong with him without doing x-rays for X amount of dollars....sit and wait....oh...and he needs these needles for X amount of dollars...sit and wait....oh, the x-rays were negative so we need to put him to sleep and go in and do some exploratory for XXX amount of dollars....sorry to say, but it doesn't look good...he needs either this XXXXXXX surgery but we can't promise you what he will be like afterwards.....at the end of day, hundreds or thousands spent and still no better off.

if it's $1800...I honestly have to say, I am not sure what I am going to do

[Mattiekrome]

Had a Jack Russell that got hit at about a year old, broke her hind leg in a couple places. They did surgery to install pins and wire in the bone structure to hold it together. Then she actually had the whole metal pin + brace assembly that ran outside of her leg and had to be cleaned and dressed twice daily for a month or so. She then had to wear an elizabethean collar so she wouldnt bite her bandage off. It ended up costing around $1,500 but she's been a great dog.

Unfortunatly I had to get rid of her (shedding problem), but we found a good home for her. She ended up barking at someone trying to break into the new owners home one night and scaring them off. In an odd way, I guess the price tag was worth it, considering she potentially stopped a home invasion / B&E from happening.

[RedMage138]

It definitely depends on quality of life after the procedure like everyone else has already said. If saving a pet means it's going to spend the rest of its life in pain then honestly it probably isn't worth saving because it won't ever be the same pet it was before the procedure.

[Hawk]

so far, doesn't sound too good...vet figures he has a major heart defect that went undetected until now. The paralysis in the hind legs is likely caused by a blood clot in the artery that supplies blood back there...more common than you'd think. Spending the weekend at the vet for observations and we'll see what happens.

[House]

so far, doesn't sound too good...vet figures he has a major heart defect that went undetected until now. The paralysis in the hind legs is likely caused by a blood clot in the artery that supplies blood back there...more common than you'd think. Spending the weekend at the vet for observations and we'll see what happens.

For myself, I would never spend big money to get a pet fixed back to health. A couple of hundred bucks, yeah.

Once you start talking about the $1,000 + range, nu-uh. Just too many unknowns, I have a kid and one on the way. What happens if I drop thousands of dollars to fix a pet and one of my kids ends up sick. I understand some people wanting to do it but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, not now anyways.

I did spend $1,5000 to ship my dog on Guam back to the states. He was the most kick-ass dog I ever owned. I say was even though he is still alive because apparently they picked up a lion in L.A. for the Asheboro Zoo. That flight across the US must have been hell. He has never been the same since.