To feel that soon , dog ownership will just be for the well off? And thats not fair.

[Tunamelt]

We had a family dog and as a child I really benefited from it . As did my own dc when we had our beloved dog.
When the dc had a hard day she cheered them up so much and it was such a good experience for them.
We have just adopted a dog.
She needed the vets in the first week due to upset tummy.
Ist vet appt £75 and then x2 meds.
She now needs a stool sample and a further vet appt to
check her health.
stool sample test alone will be over £100.
We had appt with behaviourist at £90 ph .
Her food is £60 pm.
the vet thinks she may need fluxotine for anxiety and those meds are around £80 pm
So thats come to a good amount and she has only been here a few weeks.
Its made me realise that these sort of costs are just not do able for
many - and a concern to us -and it seems so unfair that the joy of a dog may be beyond reach for many these days .

I'd Google for tips regarding behaviour rather than paying 90 quid, loads of info out there.

Regarding upset stomachs, they all get them often constantly. As others have said get some kaolin and wait it out next time, as long as they are eting drinking poo'ing and not distressed that all that matters.

People <not you, just generally> take their pets to to vets at the first sign of a rash or sticky eye. A lot of it fixes itself with common sense and Google.

Pets can be expensive yes but if you keep the vets for serious issues and manage behaviour with Google it's doable.

Isit2026yet
not destructive - she screams like she is being stabbed- she stands on back leg’s trying to get out if door.

Probably not good to keep changing her diet. What does vet / behaviourist advise?

I would avoid giving pork.

Dangers of pork for dogs
High Fat: Can trigger pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas).
Salt & Curing: Bacon, ham, and cured meats are too salty, causing thirst/dehydration.
Seasonings: Garlic and onions are toxic to dogs.
Bones: Can cause choking or internal damage.
Raw Pork: Risk of parasites like Trichinella.

I would avoid pork totally, if she has a sensitivity to grain then chicken may not be the best thing as the are fed grain themselves
We feed our small one wainwrights salmon super food one for small dogs, we rescued her and she is prone to tummy upsets/itchy skin.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but you should have kept her on her food and very gradually moved her over onto something else over a matter of 10 days or so. You’ve chopped and changed things over such a small time period with no period of adjustment.

There have been loads of expose's on how vet businesses are all being bought by American companies and upping prices/upselling operations and medications while having high targets for both for vets to wring money out of owners. Many vets have complained they are performing needless operations. A friend paid 5k for a cancer op for his dog when it needed an operation, which was his own fault for dropping insurance payments, which I suspect many will also fall foul of in the coming years of loans and higher costs.

Totally agree with this. I actually feel sorry for the dog.

If you can not afford to care for a pet from beginning to end of life and everything in-between then you should not have them.

But pets like dogs and cats can live for years and no one has a crystal ball.

When I got my cats 8 years ago, they cost about £65 per month (2x cats - food, litter, insurance and health plan). Now it's over £100 and they no longer have the health plan.

My circumstances changed for reasons beyond my control then we rolled straight into the cost of living crisis. It's manageable for me and I'd rather live on toast then give them up or see them suffer, but I couldn't have foreseen that when I got them.

Ok so i made a mistake with the food ie pork ( low fat)
So how do i proceed now in what to feed her ?
i have no idea wether she is grain free or need to avoid chicken? How can I test these things without further risk of upsetting her stomach further- we have been told to put her on bland diet… ie chicken/ rice - but what is that is the culprit??
ie chicken!
white fish ? Or risk chicken?
To the poster who said they feel sorry for the dog… I actually feel really stressed and terrible enough- yes perhaps i did make a mistake - but that comment was not helpful going’s forward.

So true. I would never get a single breed, even as a rescue in most cases ( apart from things like greyhounds, where we know that they're going to be breed for a purpose anyway). Even getting a breed as a rescue, could push up the demand for breeds.

I totally understand where the OP is coming from it’s all very new!
However by being so reactive to every small thing the dog is doing, introducing something else, consulting someone else, a new food etc they are now caught in an anxious spiral.
I always find taking a step back and calming down the best thing to do but that is easy to say when you’re an experienced dog owner.
In the last 8 years I’ve had 46 dogs through my home, a mixture of resident dogs and mostly foster dogs. Only a handful have arrived without an issues at all, anxiety and tummy issues are common, time and keeping things as normal as possible usually are the best medicine.

LydiaFunnyGums

thanks. What shall I actually feed her today please. i dont want to make things worse.

I think the general public seem to be largely unaware that approx 30% of your vet bill goes straight to the government between vat and employee NI contributions.
If you want vet bills to decrease lobby the government to remove vat and your bills be 20% lower.

Yes, and would help with anxiety too. I put yoghurt, an egg and some kibble on the lick mats and freeze for a few hours. Obviously the more frozen the longer they last, but even a bit solidified is good.

Boil some white fish and potatoes (I always a little sweet potato as well) mash and add a little of the water the fish has been cooked in. 3 small meals a day until her tummy has settled.
You don’t need to allergy test her etc for now. She didn’t have an upset tummy when she arrived and she was on cheap food/cat food?
If that’s the case it will be the move and change over of foods rather than an allergy.
OP please private message me if you think I can be of any help or you want someone to chat to x

Blame the likes of Mars taking over veterinary surgeries. Stories like being charged 49 quid for paracetamol... being told your cat needs to be sedated for plaque removal at cost of 500 but vet in France saying no need for sedation and charges 33 etc etc. Pre

Read an article that said Vets were been sold stop working long days, sell your business to us then when they do been pressured to upsell and meet targets.
Very sad.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/sep/08/they-have-you-over-a-barrel-the-uk-pet-owners-facing-staggering-vet-bills

https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2024/mar/12/vet-practices-the-competition-watchdog-is-barking-up-a-promising-tree

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/apr/06/vet-who-really-profits-from-poorly-pets

At least it will "clear the market" of potential owners.

There’s definitely been too much food switching, which may be the cause of the dodgy tummy, you really need to stick to one thing for a few weeks, then gradually change only if you need to, the anxiety about new home could be a big part of the problem, definitely stay away from prepping your own pork.

if she is following you everywhere that may just be her nature, our dogs all have different traits but 2 follow me everywhere I go, we have a dog bed in every room and wherever I am they just settle and go to sleep. They are fine being left, they just want to be near me when I’m in the house, which is natural and fine, no need to train that out of them imo.

If you possibly can, try and dial all your expectations down to zero

I haven’t read all your posts so not sure what you’ve tried. Pork is not great for a lot of dogs, although you do get pork in some decent dog food.

If you’ve been trying a few things she hasn’t had time to get used to anything so you won’t know what works for her. The upset tummy is likely to be a mix of new place and anxiety, mixed foods and maybe some individual foods. I would suggest you feed her plain boiled chicken breast for the next 7 days and see how she gets on. Boiling takes the fat out, so it’s gentler on her system. You can add plain boiled white rice but lots of dogs don’t like it. After 7 days, all being well, I would start to introduce the food you intend to feed her long-term. I don’t know whether you’ve made a decision on that already. I feed Orijen or Wolfworthy. Both high quality kibble. I found raw food a pain, and kibble can be taken out on walks and used for training.

There’s a lot to learn, but you can and will improve things with consistency and patience. Your dog is learning about you and you are learning about her.

When my last dog became ill at age 13, we took her to the vets. Tests showed her kidneys were failing. The vet said to bring her back monthly for blood tests and to have her blood pressure taken. These tests would show how her kidneys were doing. After a lot of heart searching we decided not to take her back every month. She, like most dogs, hated going to the vets and she hated even more them sticking needles in her to take blood. I had an argument with the vet about it but we stuck to our decision. She had another year with us. We had a holiday, which she loved. She went down very quickly at the end and we had her PTS. I’m sure we did the right thing for our beloved pet.

The way vets carry on now seems driven by making money, rather than what’s best for the animals.

lessglittermoremud

thank you for your understanding.
we have never done rescue before and feel more hyoer alert to issues than when we had pups.

we need manage ourselves- am aware of that - but as we dont know her . Its hard . For eg she just stops still on walks and stares at us .. she also stares at things going by …stock still . She can usually be distracted into moving- gives a shake - then walks on - but to be honest am unsure why she does it

do you think that she is best off not doing any sep anxiety training? The behaviourist and the vet both say dont leave her atm - but for her to stay under threshold of her anxiety and get her to feel
ok when i am in other room for now.
i am getting cabin fever for sure - but if i think that i can in future actually leave the house for an hour - id be very happy to work hard on this - and be able to relax - which i recognise is an issue atm as i feel utterly overwhelmed.

My dog is having a minor operation next week. As the vet was preparing an estimate on the computer she said “oh, we’ve got a discount on (this kind of surgery) at the moment, so there’s 20% off”. We kind of laughed about it being good timing, but afterwards I thought wtf?

Maybe the vet wasn’t supposed to announce there was a discount because how would I know the normal cost? It’s not like I’ll be shopping around for a better deal. Or is that what you’re supposed to do these days?

I agree it’s a shame, I don’t know if unfair in the right word. Unfair implies that some people are being denied something for no reason. I don’t think that applies here - people are not being denied the oppprtunity to own a pet, it’s just not as affordable as it once was. Can still make choices to enable it to happen.

Who do you think should pay for the cost of your ( completely optional) dog if not you?

Allisnotlost1

thank you

If you don’t need to leave her at the moment then I wouldn’t, when I’ve had one with separation anxiety the first thing I do is pop up a baby gate so they can’t follow me everywhere but can still see me.
Then I nip out to the garden and grab washing etc in, if they start to bark I still my head around and tell them to stop. When I enter the house I just carry on doing what I was doing without acknowledging them. I have help in my resident dogs because they aren’t reactive to being left so usually a new dog realises no one else is getting upset and I’m in and out that there is no need to get worked up but it takes time. We use stuffed kongs rather then lick mats because you can soak their usual food into a mush, stuff the kong, so you’re not using different food. Some people pop the in the freezer for a little while to make it harder to get the food out.
It sounds like she is hyper focused if she is staring at things, this is probably down to what breed she is and what she is focusing on ie, birds etc if she is literally staring at nothing then it could be a cognitive issue. My first rescue dog was an unsold puppy from a puppy farm, we got her through a rescue at 14 months and she had been on a kennel all that time, she had learnt to entertain herself by shadows, lights and flies 🙈
Distraction and clicker training helped her, and although sometimes flies still make her zone in, if I tell her to stop she snaps out of it.
She may be staring at you because she wants you to do something, my brothers springer keeps stopping on walks and stares at you until you produce a ball, but if someone else took him out and they didn’t know that, they would wonder what on earth he was doing!