To put dog down if I can’t afford the vet

[Difficuldecisions]

my situation is, I am estranged from my family so I can’t ask for help. PDSA and other pet charities don’t cover my area. I have checked.
She is 7. I have had her since I was 13. I am 19 now. Parents didn’t believe in insurance. And whilst I was still under age she developed collapsing trachea, and also needed a 3k operation on one knee for luxating patella. She has also been to the vet for eye issues and stomach issues over her life time that she needed injections for, including digestive issues. So it was pointless me getting insurance because of the number of pre existing conditions.
She has now dislocated one of her knees again. And I have no way of affording that not even on a payment plan.
She is in pain but is still herself. I don’t know if I should ask to have her put down.

We are in a time when pets and pet insurance, and programmes on TV tug at heartstrings in a way they never did before.

In the past it wasn't so, and whoever tells the OP that she should bankrupt herself keeping this pet is wrong, in my book, because attempting to cure an animal is not always possible, and even if it was, the treatment could be more traumatic.

I am full of compassion for situations like this. In the country, vets are far more understanding of pet owners and how far they should keep an animal alive.

The OP - and anyone in her position should ignore folks who say you have to put yourself in debt to treat an animal. It isn't just unkind, it is more mental cruelty when you play on heartstrings.

in the past dogs of course were put down far easier than today, with all the treatments now available.

I saw many cases of this in vets practice too.

The problem with payment plans is that they are finance, vets are not registered as financial institutions and as such are not legally allowed to offer such services doing so can land them in hot water. Smaller independents also can’t afford the hit. If you are lucky and have a really good rapport with your vet and a history of always paying on time they may bend the rules a little (pay half now we’ll give you 2 weeks to find the other half type of thing) but thats often as far as it stretches and can legally stretch.

Vets are so expensive these days because diagnostics and treatment options are much more advanced (on a par with humans) and the equipment and specialist knowledge costs a lot. But just because we can keep an animal physically alive doesn’t always mean we should or that their quality of life is good, often done for ourselves not because its best for them.

What gets me that even with awareness as prominent as it is today about pet insurance, some people still don't even consider it!

The local.community pages online for my area went nuts just before Xmas with people suddenly trying to flog kittens and people asking for free free kittens and those asking for free kittens would always be the ones who just a couple of weeks earlier were begging for Xmas decorations from people because they are on benefits and couldn't afford to buy any!

Too many people think it's a cheap hobby to have a pet and that I once you get one it doesn't cost much to keep! Food and flea treatments alone add up! Especially with cats because they won't necessarily eat the cheapest cat food on the market! Many cars like mine won't eat the wet meat at a tenner or something box, no it has to be the stuff at £15+ a box! And if they have sensitivities it gets even more pricey!

With all due respect I travel a lot and have taken my pets with me , Spain , Portugal , France , Cyprus have really advanced veterinary care ( I would say Portugal and Spain specially ) and vet costs are in places 10% of what they cost here . Vets costs were less than half less than 10 years ago . It’s nothing to do with needing to increase and a lot to do with greed and control . 90% of the vets in the uk are owned by 2 major companies so they control the prices .
As an example tooth extraction , abscess extraction and analysis and 2 days in care for an elderly cat in Cyprus costed £300 4 weeks ago. The clinic was extremely modern , they even had their own lab .

My friend was taken in by an April Fool from 1984 and told her work colleagues that her husband was going to take her to see it at the zoo.
https://hoaxes.org/af_database/permalink/lirpa_loof

My parents fell for this one and told their friend who had come round for coffee. He asked them what the date was.
https://hoaxes.org/af_database/permalink/retrobreeding_the_woolly_mammoth

What about crowdfunding?

Error

If it was one off, curable condition but it isn't! She might scrape the 3k for one op but what if it recurs, what about the high likelihood of another knee going due to the fault within the dogs genetics, what about the arthritis to come, any further treatment on the trachea, the injections she has to have regularly for other conditions! This is too much to be relying on crowdfunding and too many idiots who fail to insure pets these days rely on crowdfunding whilst the pets sits in pain a suffering until sufficient funds are raised.

Oh bless you OP
What a lot of responsibility having to look after this poor little dog when you're already alone in the world at 19 trying to look after yourself.
Call Battersea Dogs Home (they'll always be the dogs home to me). They have really good advice lines and have seen and heard it all.
Also, I hope you're getting enough support for you as well ❤

You've been in my thoughts OP. I hope you're ok x

In the past, a vet - especially in the country - would not subject a pet to surgery if they knew the owner couldn't pay for it. They would have said there was nothing they could do and put the animal to sleep.

There should be no feelings of guilt or failure. People with money put their pets through all sorts of operations.

They look good on TV and vets are able to do complicated operations, and expensive treatment, BUT if that was common it WOULDN'T BE ON TV, would it?

An Unconnected simile, but nonetheless we don't think everyone has beautiful tresses in the shampoo ads, do we, and how many people look like the perfume ads?

In reality, nothing is like the TV shows it.

Supervet is someone I have a lot of issues with. For example putting prosthetic limbs onto animals; they have to adjust and learn a whole new gait when they're much happier adjusting to three legs. I'm sure he loves animals but the complicated stuff he does is for the humans not their pets.

He was in bother at one point for it I seem to remember because his surgeries were becoming very unethical and about charging owners many thousands for procedures that don't benefit the animals.

I can think of a few cases where he'd offer treatment IF the pet could be featured on TV or he could try out a new 'ground breaking' idea... but if the owner wasn't willing for their animal to be poked, prodded, used like a guinea pig or a marketing device, he wasn't remotely interested in helping or would offer a ridiculous price so they'd go elsewhere.

His interest is in himself first, second and last. There is a hilarious episode of Infinite Monkey Cage (i think... if memory serves) where he tries to act like he's the big yin among some serious scientists...and comes across a proper twit.

Hoping OP finds this funny rather than a derail but

https://virginradio.co.uk/music/110598/britneys-toxic-is-about-supervet

Have you ever seen that TV programme about the vet in America who set up a clinic with lots of student vets and charged people whatever they could pay? The students paid fees, got experience, and that was passed on to the pet owner who couldn't otherwise pay. It was all on condition the animals were spayed or neutered.

There used also the be a TV programme about the American equivalent of our RSPCA.

In one programme, the dog belonging to a hobo was hit by a car. That dog had been the hobo's companion since he was a puppy. The animal shelter made him sign over the dog to them for treatment, because the man had no money. He had to give the dog up.

Where was the charity in that? Where was the care for the DOG, who had had the same parent for years, and had to be rehomed or put down for the sake of a few dollars more than the man could pay.

It makes a massive difference finding a vet that's in it for the love of the animals rather than the money and it does seem a rare find, my parents ripped of by every vet they ever had for their dogs over the years, we luckily had a really lovely vet open up in our town and he's the sweetest guy who seems as taken with our pets as we are.

He saved my cats life after she was hit by a car during lockdown, she had to have her pelvis rebuilt quite a bit and she was in the vets a few days for that, with all the meds and all the subsequent visits for check ups and X rays it came to about 2k for lot which my insurance picked up anyway with out complaint but I felt many vets would have charged a hell of a lot of more! And she made the quickest and fullest recovery ever and you'd never know she'd been so banged up! He's notorious in our area for being the best vet ever ☺️

"90% of the vets in the uk are owned by 2 major companies so they control the prices".

This is the big problem. I think there was a You and Yours programme about this. It's like care homes. Anything that plays on people's feelings and guilt is taken over by big business to extract profit.

It might have been this one but think they come back to this subject quite regularly.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0022cf0?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

I think most vets are in it for the animals. I don’t think I’ve met one that isn’t.

Given it can take 5-7 years to qualify as a vet, often includes hefty student loans and are the equivalent of both a human GP and a surgeon only with need for knowledge on far more than just one species / type of species they aren’t great wages comparatively speaking. Average annual wage for a vet is around £60,000 which for level of knowledge and skill is pretty poor. It’s an extremely stressful job with the highest rates of suicide of any profession.

Vets themselves don’t make great money, most practices are owned by large corporations, CVS & IVC being the main two. Vets don’t set the fees or the rules of the practices they work in the corporations that own them do. Vets don’t get commission for selling certain products or brands either.

I have been a student in veterinary practice and work regularly with vets in my current role and have seen vets, nurses and even receptionists tie themselves in knots, bend over backwards and bend rules where they can to help clients out who are struggling with costs often not charging or undercharging for things in the interest of welfare or to prevent an animal having to be euthanised for things that could be easily fixed or taking on surrendered animals and covering the cost of the treatment themselves to prevent the same. Nothing makes a vets heart sink more than someone bringing in a sick but perfectly treatable animal and being told the owner can’t afford even the most basic of treatment or that they thought the £50 RSPCA voucher would cover everything not just the consult fee.

I think on the whole vets get a lot of unnessisary stick.

He's definitely been a big part of this whole "you don't love your pet if you don't spend thousands and thousands of pounds on keeping them alive at all costs" vibe that's going on.

We changed vet after booking an appointment for a serious issue
and being fobbed off with a first year student nurse
not a vet
but they wanted £100 for the consultation
Private Equity buyouts of UK vets are vile

Lovely post @GlitteryUnicornSparkles but I think the £60k estimate is generous even. I earn half that, my senior colleagues with 25+ years experience early about three quarters of that.