Pet ownership should be for the wealthy

[spottybaghottyhag]

Pre emptying this by saying we are low income, get topped up by UC and my pet is eligible for PDSA treatment

My ddog 13 has been eating less than usual and not keen to go out as much, but otherwise bright and seemingly well. Made an appointment with the above vet. Due to his age they wanted to do x-ray/scan under sedation. Was very shocked to discover he has a tumour in his stomach. Vet basically said (over the phone) that as they are a charity hospital they cannot do anything further, the options are either a referral to a specialist vet to ascertain if it's cancer, or PTS. She said the referral + tests would be circa £1k, which wouldn't obviously include any actual treatment or surgical options.
Personally I don't want to explore other options regardless, he's 13, had a great life and I don't think major surgery or chemo on any elderly animal is fair. We are making sure he's still comfortable and will PTS when we feel he's not.

Onto the AIBU: it really made me feel that you should only get a pet if you can afford expensive vet bills. The PDSA are very limited in what they do (very understandably) and you cannot rely on them as a complete veterinary service. Insurance doesn't always pay out. Someone asked me will I get another dog when ddog goes and my answer was we cannot afford it. She felt I was being very unreasonable. Am I?

I so agree with this! Private equity companies are driving bills sky high, while driving vets and nurses out of the industry with their appalling treatment and it is a scandal.

However, should only the wealthy have pets is a separate question and its not a yes or no answer for me.I agree that people should be more careful about researching the cost of pets and ensuring, as a much as they can, that they can meet those needs. I don't have insurance but I do have a savings account purely for vet fees and access to credit cards, as well as prioritising my pets with my spending.

But I also see the good that pets do for some of the most marginalised people in our society so I support charities like the PDSA. My daughter is a vet nurse and did her work placement at a local PDSA branch. Some of the stories she told me about the owners were heart breaking. Elderly, mental and/or physically handicapped, some of her clients had never worked or would ever be able to and had fallen through the cracks in society. Their pets were their only company in a society that has little provision for mental health services, where community centres and outreach programs are being cut to the bone or abolished. I couldn't imagine how much their quality of life would suffer if they couldn't have a pet. I have no problem donating to the PDSA so someone who has far less than me in many ways, can have the comfort of a cat or a dog and for that pet to be kept healthy. We judge how civilised a society is by how well it treats its most vulnerable members and in this case, I see pets as a need, not a luxury. And it costs society a lot less that community services! I realise this is not a popular opinion on mumsnet.

I am sorry to hear about your dog. For what it is worth, I think you are doing the right thing by him.

I'm completely convinced about this, even if I had a million pounds it isn't fair to put s dog who has had a great life through stuff that humans wouldn't want to go through.

I think the cost really came as a shock to me though. We've been lucky that ddog's health has been good, so I wasn't aware of how much vet bills are. There's a new sign in the PDSA to say a consultation costs £245, so they suggest people leave a contribution of £25. I noticed that the majority of people do not contribute though. Surely we should not be encouraging pet ownership for people who know they are going to rely on a charity?

I disagree. I think it’s the idea that people won’t or can’t consider putting pets down when they are very sick is the issue. I get that people see pets as one of the family but it’s crazy that people will put themselves in financial hardship for a pet. I wouldn’t. I absolutely love animals but I’d never consider expensive treatment. I don’t think it’s fair on the animals either.

There are a few posts where posters are complaining about vets recommending expensive treatment but many (most?) vets wouldn’t benefit from it. About 60% of veterinary practices are owned by big companies.

I am sorry about your dog, OP. I hope you can take comfort from the many years you were able to share.

As for whether pet ownership is for the wealthy, I find it interesting how expensive it is to own a pet compared to even just 30-40 years ago. I think both the average costs and expectations associated with pet ownership and veterinary care have changed drastically within that timeframe. I'm not sure if it's more a shift in the type of treatments and surgeries for pets that are now widely available or if it has more to do with changing attitudes towards them.

Back in the 80s and 90s I used to have four cats at once. Not any more. I have a good job but I can only have 2 cats at any one time because the cost of everything is so high.
I do of course have pet insurance but when the cats are old the insurance does not cover everything and you have to pay a substantial part of the claim. My last cat cost me £10k during her lifetime of 21 years and that was with insurance.
Its no joke.

YABU. Pet ownership should NOT be only for the wealthy. You may as well say 'having children should be only for the wealthy' as well...

What needs to happen is a serious investigation into the ludicrous, astronomical prices that vets charge. And don't anyone give me the 'Vet Bills/NHS/private health care' argument, because someone I know just had a vet bill for their cat, and it was for a heart scan, one 15 minute consultation, 3 days worth of anti-inflammatories, and for 2 teeth to be extracted. The bill was £2,500! If anyone had that done (a human!) via private health care, no way would it be that much for so little.

Also, a woman I know had a dog who got knocked over by a van some months back, and he had several broken bones, and was in surgery for a day, and in the vet clinic for 2 more days 'in recovery..;' They had a week's worth of painkillers for the dog... Total cost: £10,000. Fucking outrageous. Vet bills are a piss-take, and a rip off.

Disclaimer, SOME vets charge decent prices, but many have outrageous prices, and they should be ashamed of themselves! Sadly, many smaller vets have been taken over by big conglomorates, and all they care about it £££££££££!

But yeah, to say people shouldn't have pets if they're not well off is just daft. It's the vet bills that need to come down. I don't remember EVER having a vet bill that cost 2-5 months salary like some people have these days. It's sickening...

.

I completely agree. They are thousands and thousands. If you can't afford that commitment, you should not have pets at all

I do think the cots for animal treatments have been able to spiral due to insurance - no one has insurance for pets in the 80s and 90s, it was just you paid (or didn’t). Because so many do, the full cost isn’t a consideration in whether to treat or not- I pay £120 if my dogs treatment costs £500 or £3k. But this does mean theres less customer pushback on price increases. It’s only those without insurance who need to pay.

Vet fees do need to come down. It used to be you had to be a qualified vet to own a vet practice, that would take some of the inverter pressure out if it was brought back in.

Onto the AIBU: it really made me feel that you should only get a pet if you can afford expensive vet bills.

YANBU
But I think a lot of people don't realize how much it will cost if your pet becomes ill. You either have to be able to afford the insurance each month plus extra money in reserve for things it won't cover or you have to be earning a lot or have a pile of savings you don't mind dipping into.
You can be lucky and your pet has nothing wrong with it its whole life and then goes downhill rapidly at a ripe old age as happened to 4 of my childhood cats or you might adopt a pet and they turn out to have a chronic condition like one of mine has. Then you have to be able to afford the tests in the first place (mine even had a CT scan at a cost of €800) and then the ongoing treatment.
On top of that food and cat litter is becoming increasingly more expensive. And then the chronically ill cat has to have a very expensive special food.

People really do need to think more about whether they can afford to have a pet or not.

The cats I have now will be my last ones because once I am retired I won't be able to afford to pay for everything they need. It's sad as I love cats very much but it's not fair on them if I can't pay for the things they need and have to make decisions based on financial necessity and not medical need.

DM and I were talking about this. We always had dogs growing up, as did she. She was saying it was very normal to either leave your dog at home in the garage, or the garden tied up whilst out at work all day with a bowl of water and maybe a bone to chew on. There was no concern of separation anxiety or the dog feeling alone/unloved/bored. Nowadays though people install cameras at home or put them into doggie daycare and that is considered the norm.

That's exactly why I voted YABU. What constitutes being wealthy, in any case? For many of us it is not a luxury to have a pet but an essential for maintaining good mental health.

I fully agree that a pet can be very therapeutic and inevitably is much cheaper than mental health services. I don't know how 'wealthy' the PDSA is, but if it stopped tomorrow then that would mean all of these pets would be ill and not getting any treatment, which is grossly unfair to the animal. Ultimately the owner bears the responsibility for this.

Who is responsible for the pet who has the role of maintaining your mental health then?

Just wanted to add, my daughter is seeing a lot of clients these days who did plan for vet bills when they bought their pet but didn't see a COL crisis and the take over of the veterinary industry by private equity companies. People who got their pets, six, seven years ago and didn't forsee the financial hammering they were about to get. Very ordinary people who are responsible pet owners are finding themselves in significant distress now that their pets are getting older.

People are voting with their feet, though - DD works for an independent and they are so busy with the amount of new clients they are getting since a few of the local practices have been taken over. People are very angry, not just about costs but also the quality of service. Someone told me recently that when their dog was dying of kidney disease, they had 11 appointments in 2 weeks at their local surgery and didn't see the same vet twice. This surgery was fantastic before it was taken over, now the prices are sky high, the old team have all left and it seems to be a revolving door of young, newly graduated vets who leave as soon as they can.

I agree, it probably isn't worth it for an older dog, we didn't have it for our last dog and just paid for any treatment, we did have a certain amount and treatment that we decided we wouldn't pay for and we had our last dog euthanized with a medical condition at 11, we had paid hundreds in tests and treatment and we didn't think it was fair to continue.

The trouble is higher earners are often time poor so the animal would still be neglected.

Im not sure if I count as a higher earner. I earn more than average but high bills etc. Even if I had lots of spare cash (I don’t) I wouldn’t get a pet as the poor thing would be on its own nearly all the time as I work really long hours.

So as a time poor person I walk my sisters dog once a week. So I have no costs, no commitment and the dog (Lilly) isn’t left alone as my sisters partner works from home Monday - Friday.

So maybe dog time share is the way forward.

I agree they are very expensive though. Sorry your dog is unwell.

Cheaper than having children. I don’t have children, but my dogs basically are. For some of us, they provide us with much valued companionship and love.

Like many things in society today, it will become polarised. If you are very poor, you will get help, if you are very wealthy, you will be able to do what you like anyway. It will be people in the middle and the 'not poor enough' who won't be able to afford pets.

I agree with you, OP. It is selfish and irresponsible to take on a pet if you cannot afford to care for them appropriately.

I'm very sorry about your dog

I don't think only the wealthy should be afforded to love and companionship of animals.
I do think we need to be realistic about overtreatment and life extending of animals for no ones benefit other than our own.
MRIs, chemo, multiple joint replacements; its no wonder insurance premiums are shooting up, more pets in need of care are being abandoned and we get posts like this.
We need to go back to being sensible, if you have an elderly animal with tumours surgery isn't going to be kind, nor is the chemo. Take the painkillers, give them a good quality last few days/weeks and let them pass peacefully in your arms.

I suppose I fall into the poor category as I'm eligible for PDSA. We became owners of ddog by accident, a local woman (irresponsibly) got an 8 week old puppy. She had two DC under 2 and lived in a flat and he was soiling everywhere. She didn't have space/time to train him and asked if we could look after him until she found someone. I said yes, and after several failed attempts at finding him a home he stayed with us and has been a very beloved pet (and dare say it, a family member 🥹). I started off with an ordinary vet for vaccinations etc but then five years ago started with PDSA. I feel terrible about this now though, it is fully funded by charity. So I've been enjoying my pet partially at the expense of the goodwill of others (although I always leave decent contribution, but it wouldn't cover the cost).
I suppose the question should be: should you get a pet if you know you'll be relying on a charity to foot the bill?

That’s a bit of a silly assumption. I’m a high earner but work from home a few days a week, my cat joins half my calls and sits on my lap most of the day. He certainly isn’t neglected. Plenty of lower income workers wouldn’t be able to work from home (care worker, retail, factory work) and will also work long hours or multiple jobs. Doubt there’s much of a correlation.

Side note, but I was reading on another forum about unexpected side hustles and someone said they offer 'doggy wilderness holidays'. So he gets paid significant amounts of money to take dogs camping, by owners who are time poor who want their dog to go on holiday!

This is another reason why snakes are great pets. My OH worked out that 18 years of everything for my Burmese python, including 1/3rd of the garden room cost (cos she’s in it!) was equivalent to less than a year of owning the horse!

I entirely agree with your initial premise OP. People should only have pets if they can afford them when it goes right and wrong. Insurance is fine if that’s the route

i also agree that the advent of pet insurance has massively increased both costs and the number of operations being done on animals. Personally I think it’s appalling, for example, that you can get cataract surgery done on Russian hamsters!

I fostered for a couple of years before adopting. Yes, all costs are covered, & you’re doing a wonderful thing for the animals, but you & your family also have to recognise that it’s not permanent & not get too attached. That’s the hard bit.