If You Think Your Pet Is Ill...

[midori1999]

WWhatever the time, day or night, vets have an emergency out of hours service. You can speak to and explain symptoms to avet who wil tell you if you need to come in as an emergency or if they need to come out and do a home visit.

It is FAR better to look/feel a bit silly in front of your vet because there really is no 'emergency' than to have a sick, dying or suffering pet. If you thought your child might be sick would you worry about looking silly or would you wait until morning to take them to A&E?

Not getting a sick animal to a vet is neglect, pure and simple. I never gfail to be gobsmakced by teh number of people on various forums that I use that aren't aware their vets have an out of hours service or for whatever reason, best known only to them, are reluctant to visit the vets with their animal.

I agree - in my opinion there is a better out of hours service for animals than there is for us!

I had to call on them bank holiday weekend with a vomiting puppy - they treated him and all was well within 12 hours but always better to be safe than sorry.

People are often afraid to because they might be faced with a massive bill, especially for an out of hours service. IMO this is usually the only reason they hang about.

You don't have to pay to have a child seen, thank God.

Have had many many calls from people out of hours as a vet and to be honest I only get cross with the entirely stupid ones, but even then not to them on the phone as that would not be professional. The ones that vets get cross about are the 3am calls "my cat has been vomiting for a week" or "can I make an appointment for the morning?". I have also been asked to vaccinate pets in the night because the owner has just realised they are going into kennels the next day and the vaccines are out of date.
Thankfully these sorts of calls are not a daily event and the vast majority are people who are sensible with genuine reason to ring in. Often we can get enough information about the problem to make a decision about when is the most appropriate time to see the patient. Insured pets will usually be covered under their policy for out of hours call outs unless it is for an already excluded health problem. Many people are reasonable about the fees charged but there still seems to be a core of people who moan about fees. If you expect a service to be provided then it needs to be paid for.

Yes, of course - I concur.

It's just that often you can't tell if an animal is really sick or not, and then you don't know if you will be paying £600 or just the £15 consultation fee, and whether it is even necessary.

It's not quite the same as when you know a child is poorly.

I jacked in our insurance (sorry) when I realised that nothing our cat suffers from on say a once a year basis would be covered.

It would only be any use if she got knocked over or something. It's a lot of dosh on top of the expensive flea stuff, worming and all that. And there tends to be a big excess.

I think the system is pretty flawed which is a shame as I insure for everything else. And I understand that vets need to be paid!

A phone call to the vet costs the price of a phone call. (free in a lot of people's cases) The cost of a consultation out of hours is the same whether your pet requires treatment or not. I am pretty sure most vets, upon seeing an animal, if it required emergency treatment and you couldn't afford it, would treat the animal anyway and worry about /arrange installments later. In fact, I think they are bound to do this, at least ethically if not legally. (maybe beautifulgirls could confirm this?)

We insure all our dogs, which costs around £80 a month. Over the years that has added up, obviously, and we have never claimed once. However, knowing an accident could occur and my dogs will need potentially very expensive treatment (a friend's dog had aborken pelvis and the treatment ended up costing around £6000) I keep the insurance up, even if that means we sometimes have to go without other things, as I have a responsibility to my animals.

I know there is an out of hours emergency number here as my animals only ever injure themselves or get really ill on a Sunday or a Bank Holiday.

i called out of hours last summer whwen my bunny appeared to have a big scab on her back (about the size of 10pence peice) i was really worried in case it was flystrike, but when i described it, then assured me it wasnt and should be fine to leave to the monday. it was a mite infestation but 3 jabs and she recovered. But the vets were so lovely on the phone and called me back over the weekend to check on bunny, and see if i had any more concerns.

£80 a month? Oh dear. that would be WAY beyond our means.

Saying that so would 6 grand.

We were hoping to get a dog from a rescue place one day, but it looks like we won't be able to.

and HOW does setting a broken pelvis cost £6,000? I just don't get it. Does it even cost that much for a human being?

Forgive me if this is simplistic but even if the vet earned say £60 an hour...that is 100 hours working solidly on this one dog.

ALLE-FECKING-LUJAH! At last, someone with a bit of common sense and humanity.

Well said Midori. I'm glad that someone has had the courage to say, far more politely and sensitively, what I have been thinking all morning.

And may I add, if you're not perpared to do so, you don't deserve the pet.

Is this a thread about a thread?

No, it is not a thread about a thread, it is a thread about something I have noticed over time regarding people and their pets and the fact that many do not seem to be aware of the out of hours vet services or how to use them.

Oour insurance is that much as we have four dogs, my friend pays £17 a month for her dog, with a good, comprehensive cover. Surely most people can afford that if they re-arrange finances slightly? If they can't, why the heck have they got a pet they can't afford and how would they afford vet treatment if it was needed. Pets are not a right, they are a priveledge and it's a pity more people don't see them as such. I accept it is different if people's circumstances change, but the PDSA etc help in those instances.

I don't know the full details of treatment for the dog I mentioned with the broken pelvis, but the inury required treatment over a period of time. I am not sure if there were other injuries involved too. The poor dog followed a frisby that had been 'taken' by the wind over the edge of a cliff whilst being walked by the owners Mother. Horrific. However, it does show how these things can happen unexpectedly and how much vet treatment for one occurance can cost.

I'm sorry but I don't agree - vets are hideously expensive and I haven't met any over the years who would even consider waiving a fee - most want the cash from you before you can even claim from the insurance companies.
Generally I think owners wait if it doesn't look like an emergency (and sometimes it doesn't) - i know that my vets always want to see the animal,administer antibiotics etc etc and generally rack up a large bill whatever is wrong.Usually most things come in just under the excess of my policy (which isn't cheap and goes up considerably every year.)
I think most owners think that going to the vets is a bit of a rip off tbh and the same with pet insurance.
Perhaps if they were less expensive people would be more willing to go.

Now I'm running away.

My dog is insured, actually all my dogs have been insured, never used it - always paid the vets fee. The cat is not insured - but she is the one that needed the out of hours service.

She came in one Sunday and was dragging her back legs, couldnt feel anything broken but she wasnt 'right' called the vets, took her in, kept her in over night, gave her some x rays, injections and put her on a drip and antibiotics, she was fine within a couple of days - no idea what was wrong with her, but she recovered well and has been fine ever since.

you are right,but if it isn't a thread about a thread it's not the best timing.

We do not have a PDSA here. The vet that used to accept PDSA referrals has ceased to do so.

I have never seen having a pet as a right. However when I am aware of the enormous numbers of creatures in sanctuaries who would benefit from having a loving home, being fed, watered, cared for and cleaned up after and the only thing stopping people from taking them on is the cost of vet care of they have an accident or are ill, it makes me very sad.

I remember when pet insurance was as rare as hen's teeth, and having our hamster operated on cost us £1.82.

Our cat was hit by a car when I was about 7, had serious internal injuries and the total was at most a few hundred quid. Nowadays it would be a few grand. Why?

Because, well I suspect because, pet insurance became popular and many vets assumed people could therefore afford far higher fees.

Then other vets put their prices up to match...I don't know, but it makes me sad anyway.

The truth is for many families that paying for one episode of a 'repeat' illness (no longer covered) means forfeiting their insurance for the rest of the year, because they can't afford to do both.

Insurance for one dog does not cost £80 a month. Midori has more than one dog, which is why her bill is so large. A normal insurance plan costs about £20 a month, many are less than this.

We claimed on our insurance for an out of hours call when Patch kept vomitting and was unable to keep down water. He needed an x-ray and the bill came to more than £400 for the tests, consultation and medication. In the end he did not have an obstruction, but we were so relieved to have the cover because he was about 4 months at the time and we were not prepared to leave him suffer. He fell sick at the weekend so it would have been a long wait for the normal vet.

We have an £80 excess so most visits to the vet are not claimed for, but it is good to know that the big bills are covered.

I am afraid I agree with Sharbie - I understand that there is far superior intervention available these days but tbh I wonder how much is necessary.

Many vets seem to be of the view that if you refuse to fork out huge amounts to keep your darling animal alive for a few more years on thyroid tablets or whatever, despite a much reduced quality of life, and a low income, you are a cruel person.

I am not saying that all vets are money grabbing maniacs! But sometimes people are just being realistic about an animal, don't want to pay £2,000 for it to lie in a radiation chamber for a few days to cure it, or simply can't afford to.

The treatments available are geared towards saving the lives of pets at almost any cost, and while that's great if you have a lot of dosh, for most of us it IS unrealistic and doesn't make sense.

Madsometimes - this is it. £400 and there was nothing actually wrong with your dog.

This sort of scenario really makes people frightened to even ring up!

I've had pets treated for something 'just in case' so many times when really there was nothing wrong. But a vet is trained to do everything possible, and will naturally wish to do that, and you feel bad saying 'no thankyou, I will wing it this time'.

sharbieinbackofthequattro I reiterate, a phone call to the vet, even out of hours, costs nothing and the vet makes no money out of being on the other end of a phone.

People always complain about the cost of everything. Having lived in Enlgand most of my life and now living in NI, I have noticed a huge difference in vets charges. My own local vets charge £12 for a consultation, £30 for puppy vaccines, £10 to microchip and I have even taken a rat in out of hours and the cost for about half an hour with the vet, antibiotics and steroids was £14! I would say that is cheap compared to the life of my pet. Yet according to our vet, people constantly moan about prices.

my dog got out of our garden whilst i was collecting OH from the airport (still think it was neighbourhood kids) i got a call from a guy saying he had knocked him down and he had called a friend who was a vet, it was a saturday night. the vet had been and treated him by the time i got there. he didn't ask any questions about whether i could pay or not. he just treated him, he wasn't even our own vet.

so yes, i think you should take your pet straight away to the vet and worry about the cost later. the animal is in pain.

Personally I'd kill and die, beg, borrow or steal to save my dogs' lives.

I've seen too many ill-treated, too many abandoned and had to fight to get too many healthy dogs out of pounds and away from certain death not to.

Can't wait til DD1 follows her dreams and becomes a vet though. Hey, cheap vet care, great!

I've used out of hours once when our lovely cat re-appeared at midnight after being missing for a week. She dragged herself across the room and was obviously not well. Rang emergency vets and dh took her in. Have to say the vet was a real grumpy sod according to dh. She died overnight so I regret taking her as she could have died in peace with us. Obviously I only regret with hindsight as if she had made a full recovery I wouldn't regret it and of course we did the right thing. Cost £350 as we didn't have insurance. We do now with our dog.

I used to panic at everything and dash to the vet, but now I realise that sometimes things do sort themselves out in a couple of days - for instance our cat who will occasionally get a stress related cystitis. The vet ahs seen her a few times over the years, always prescribed metacam which I now keep and administer as needed.

I don't think I should feel compelled to race back there every time it happens.

Mid - my point is the vets ime always say bring the animal in - always.