Why do people buy animals that can’t afford to keep!

[Poppets14]

Exactly that!

My friend has just spent 2.5k on a french bulldog. She’s just been ranting at me about the cost of vet treatment (I work for a vet)

She’s moaning that the vaccinations flea and worm treatment has come to £100

So she’s happy to give a breeder 2.5k without blinking an eye but to spend £100 on health care is a problem!

Not sure what response I want really. I get so cross about people spending thousands on puppies and then moaning about the cost of vet treatment!

@AnnieSnap. Really? I genuinely didn’t know that, I didn’t have a dog when I lived in the UK, I’m only familiar with American dog ownership! I wish we didn’t have rabid wildlife here, but we do. Last month, a dog walker was attacked by a coyote in some local woods…the poor man had to have anti-rabies shots, his dog was fine as he’d already been vaccinated.😂

@Cameleongirl DH and I have had Rabies vaccines for travelling in India, but no, we don’t have rabies in the UK. An advantage of living on a relatively small island.

@TheBullfinch

A lot of new owners also dont realise that pet insurance doesnt cover everything. Dental treatment and tooth extraction/general anaesthetic/anti-biotics etc.. You can easily pay a few hundred a year for insurance plus thousands on top of that before you even get to food and boarding costs. Boarding is £10 a night here and food is around £15 - £20 a week.

Poor quality insurance doesn’t cover dentals, decent insurance does.

[quote AnnieSnap]@Cameleongirl DH and I have had Rabies vaccines for travelling in India, but no, we don’t have rabies in the UK. An advantage of living on a relatively small island.[/quote]
And hopefully will stay that way, although with the huge amount of dog imports I fear it may just be a matter of time.

Another vet here, and would like to clarify a few things.
Regarding price increases - 25 years ago we used to have 5 minute appointments -we’d literally have time to glance at the pet, dish out medication ( often antibiotics+/-steroids) and write up notes. Now we have 15 minute appointments, 30 minutes in lockdown and still 30 minutes for certain things that require more time.
We have always had to do extra training, which tells us what we should be doing for certain conditions. Someone complained about blood pressure monitoring -it’s good practice especially in older cats with other conditions. So a vet who is doing good work is basically getting criticised.

Happychicken1 - you obviously love your dog, but please don’t feed antlers or they’ll end up with broken teeth.

Regarding not insuring - You may be able to afford a one off issue of ££2000, but are you in a position of affording say £250 a month if you end up with a dog with several treatable conditions?

People who complain about dental work - dentals are always done last - so a long dental will encroach into lunchtime. The vet won’t get paid any more if they take out lots of teeth, but they may lose a chance to sit down to eat. Vets don’t take teeth out unless they need to come out. Regarding insurance for dentals - lots of policies do cover them, so check with your policy. They will often insist on the dental work being done within a set time of you having been told about it though, so don’t wait to get it booked in.

It's particularly awful when people seem to have more money for blingy accessories than they do for actual veterinary care for the animal.

That said, I don't judge people who make the decision not to shell out for very costly treatment to keep an animal going for a few more months. I think it's perfectly acceptable (I mean it's sad-I'm not a monster! But still, acceptable) to have an animal put to sleep following a terminal diagnosis.

@nothingcanhurtmewithmyeyesshut

I spent a tenner on a hamster and over 200 on vet care when he got sick. Sadly he never recovered and was put down after a day on oxygen and fluids. Do I regret it? No, and I'd do it again. I made a commitment when I bought him that I would care for him and that includes medical treatment when needed. I loved him and never would have let him suffer.

If you can't afford the medical care or insurance, don't buy the animal.

This is so lovely to read. I’m exactly the same. Once I make a commitment to care for a pet I’m all in. Food, medical support, anything and everything it needs.

We have a Frenchie rescue, honestly they have a the absolute best personalities. He was 3-4 when we reduced him but we fully researched the coat first. His insurance is ridiculous per month but we knew that before taking him on. We make sure he has the best food for his breed etc. He’s actually really fit for a flat faced dog (loved to play with his whippet friends!). So far we’ve only paid for his annual boosters and for him to be castrated (could have claimed this back from the rescue but didn’t bother).

We would love to rescue a second but we can’t comfortably afford the insurance for a second so can’t.

I regularly volunteer to help out with transport and fundraising for Frenchie rescues though as lots of them come in because owners can’t afford to give them the care needed.

My dog just had an op that cost more than I get paid each month. I had to pay up front then claim on insurance so it can be a problem. Financial circumstances have changed since we got her 12yrs ago. She also needs a second op that won’t be covered by insurance now so I will find that a massive strain on finances.

Regular costs should be factored in to having pets it’s the unplanned ones that cost a months wages that are tricky to deal with. Looking through the receipt some things seems excessively expensive, especially the drugs/medication ones rather than those involving the vets skill.

@Astrak

My new-to-me cat gifted himself to me. He arrived, looking very much the worse for wear. Scrawny, bedraggled and very loud. He's still loud, but looking good. Insured to the hilt. Ditto the horse. They're my best mates. They get the best of everything. I sometimes go without food, but they never will.

You’re great. My type of person

As pp have pointed out, the perception of keeping animals alive in old age has changed over the years and I do sometimes think we intervene medically more than is helpful to our pets.

Once insurance becomes commonplace, prices start to increase - for anything where insurance is involved, not just for animals.

The worst thing I ever saw at a vet surgery was a lout who'd brought a 'status' dog in for some extensive treatment, funded by PDSA, who started abusing the receptionist when she pointed out the PDSA collection tin and said they'd appreciate a donation, however small.

I really want a dog, and look longingly at the rescue greyhound websites, but we can't afford the insurance costs, so a dog will have to wait until the children have grown up and started supporting themselves.

YANBU
Most people don't do the maths before purchasing a pet.
Feeding a dog £3 a day is over 1K a year. Add on vaccinations, flea treatment, grooming and kennel/ dog minding it's easily another £500-1k.
It's the naivety of the want over the reality,my MIL bought a pooch for 1.2k and months later needed to be bailed out for her own life expenses she " couldn't afford" the lack of logic infuriated me.

Dunno....doggo is a money pit (but we knew that and luffs him anyways)... Actually I do kind of know..Put simply lots and of people are poor consequential thinkers, they dont plan ahead or consider consequences. I actually think this is a national issue (something in our gene pool)? We don't as a nation tend to be very good at long term planning ... It's like everything takes us by surprise (the impacts of an aging population, lack of investment in education and training or infrastructure...the consequences of telling the very close very large trading block that we don't want frictionless trade....I could go on but you get the picture....)

YA most definitely NBU! People are mostly idiots when it comes to practicalities of pet ownership. We waited 11 years to get a pup after our last family dog died; our last dog drained our finances due to intractable epilepsy and we didn’t want to be in the position again that we had to decide between the dogs medication and blood tests, or eating that week.

I have been accused of “gatekeeping” before when I’ve suggested to a close friend that they couldn’t afford a new dog when they asked me to look over the sums, all animals need more than the bare minimum of the cheapest available food and hoping that they don’t need any veterinary treatment… it shouldn’t take a genius to work that out. The actual purchase is the cheapest part, regardless of how “designer” the animal is.

I did a full financial breakdown of how much my pooch would cost.

Puppy adoption fee £275 (more because she was a cute puppy! We originally went to meet a staffie but she was reserved when we got there)
Insurance £30
Food and treats £150
Dog walker £200
pet sitter £20 (for when we are out for more than 2 hours, she doesn't like being alone but will happily sleep in my bed with the lovely teen downstairs watching TV!
flea and wormer £10
jabs, vet check and general other stuff £250 ish a year

We got her at 10 weeks, she broke her leg at 16 weeks costing us £2000 over what insurance would pay. The rescue offered to take her back but there was no way we were giving her up. She is our responsibility and we happily take care of her.

I really don't understand people who don't care for their pets.

Our guinea pigs cost is a bloody fortune and we had to go 100 miles to a specialist vet because they are such useless delicate fluffballs. I'm pretty sure their house cost more than my first flat, it was certainly a similar size 🤣

Another foible of the pet owning public I have observed (particularly those without long term insurance cover) is the difficulty accepting that animals get conditions that cannot be cured, only managed. Most people accept that their own medical conditions might be chronic (asthma, eczema, rheumatoid arthritis etc) but moan when their animal improves on treatment and relapses when the tablets finish, despite every effort to manage their expectations.

Also, the willingness of (most) human patients to accept lots of scans and blood tests to get a definitive diagnosis for their own medical condition, but expect vets to diagnose everything under the sun by giving a lump a squeeze or running one simple blood test.

And thirdly the disconnect between the fact that serious illnesses are typically difficult and expensive to treat, and also tend to have a worse prognosis. Therefore, unfortunately, there is sometimes an inverse relationship between the cost of treatment and the likelihood of success. Although some treatments/operations are absolutely joyful in the amount of difference they make, so it’s not a reason to be pessimistic, but definitely something clients need to be counselled about and understand before consenting go treatment.

Almost 30 years ago I worked in a public library for a few years before I went off to University. My hamster had an issue with her eye, she ended up having eyedrops and they cost about £20 which was loads then. My boss let me keep her under the counter at work for a couple of days so I could keep watch over her. When she eventually died a few months later she was buried in the garden of the library as I had no garden and lived in a little flat. When her sister died the following year, they were Russian dwarf hamsters so were a pair she joined her. My boss was pretty amazing overall.

It’s very hard administering eyedrops to a hamster.

Yanbu. I have a spaniel who is v cheap to run after his initial £800 outlay - he has a flea and working programme and jabs I think it's £14 a month. He is never ill.

The bloody rabbit....has cost me far more over a shorter period and we are getting another one in the new year and they are getting fecking insured the little buggers. If you didn't know rabbits are at high risk of gi stasis when their gut packs up. If I call the vet they will drop everything to see my bunny due to high risk of death!!

I knew the op would be about a French bulldog before I even opened it.

A case in point here, DDog1 managed to get himself tangled up in some barbed wire yesterday.

£127 and no serious ill effects later, we will cancel going out for lunch on Sunday in lieu of the vets bill, but no big deal. It's too small to claim on his insurance but is still a chunk out of our monthly budget which thankfully we are able to absorb. Completely unexpected though and utterly unavoidable

It's not just the health care it's the babysitting. I have a dog who got kicked out of doggy day care because he doesn't like puppies so I have to fit my working hours around him.
At least he comes on holiday with me.

The bunny goes to a small animal hotel which is a v reasonable £3.50 a night but the nearest one is 45 minutes away.

Omg! Yes!

I too work in a vet and we see so many Frenchies, all with problems requiring surgeries such as BOAS, Spinal issues, puppies with fractured elbows, etc. Some do have decent insurance but the rest have either no insurance or have gone for the cheapest of the cheap policies that have a £1000 policy limit. Totally enrages me!! I don’t understand why they buy a dog that costs £2.5k+, not insure it and then complain about costs!

It's crazy. We chose a cocker partly for breed strength and hardiness - looking at common health issues was part of the prep for getting another dog!!

I feel strongly that a licence should be reintroduced for pet (at least dog and cat) ownership. I don't know exactly what that would look like or what exemptions there might be, but it might put a stop to the stupidity of idiots buying animals they don't understand and can't afford, AND buying/training an animal as a trophy or a weapon.

There should be a bloody entrance exam too.

@Poppets14

Exactly that!

My friend has just spent 2.5k on a french bulldog. She’s just been ranting at me about the cost of vet treatment (I work for a vet)

She’s moaning that the vaccinations flea and worm treatment has come to £100

So she’s happy to give a breeder 2.5k without blinking an eye but to spend £100 on health care is a problem!

Not sure what response I want really. I get so cross about people spending thousands on puppies and then moaning about the cost of vet treatment!

Your friend is an idiot. The end.

We need a licence to own any live animal. As posts here have shown people who seem otherwise to have a degree of sense with other animals don’t think or realise smaller animals need proper care and medical treatment too.