Come On Pet Owners, How Poor Are you Really?

Often I encounter a pet owner pleading online for help with their sick, injured, or dying, pet. They always seem to have the line “I cannot afford to take it to a vet, please help”. I roll my eyes nearly every time I see this, my typical response is “If you can afford a computer and Internet service, you should be able to afford to take your pet to the veterinarian.”. Yet when you say this to somebody their typical response is something like “I am on my cell phone!”. To me there is no difference, if you can afford a computer and Internet, or a cell phone, you darn well can afford to take your pet to the vet.

Veterinarian care is expensive, no doubt about it, but so are many things, coffee, shoes, car payments, and a lot of other things that really are luxuries not necessities.

Lower income people who want to have pets need to understand that sometimes pet ownership means making a sacrifice on other things in order to put money away for emergency vet care. And believe me I was there once myself (lower income I mean).

I worked part time for minimum wage raising a kid as a single parent, paying a mortgage and so forth, even with the widows pension I got (my first husband had passed away) I was still living on less than a welfare mom with one kid. I made sacrifices and lived frugally. I had no cable, no Internet, no cell phone, so ya, it does piss me off when some jerk driving a $15,000 new car bitches about not being able to afford vet care for their pet.

At least get your pet to the veterinarian so you know what is wrong, how bad it is, and how much it will cost, before you rush around taking advice from strangers on the Internet who may not know what they are talking about.

Owning a pet should be a serious commitment, that animal's life and health are your responsibility. If it dies because you were too cheap to sacrifice a cup of coffee, or could not live without a cell phone, it is your fault.

Don't be going online looking for free veterinarian help, complaining you are poor when you have 20 pairs of shoes in your closet and case of beer in the fridge. That ain't poverty.

I should add that I sympathetic when a person cannot pay expensive treatment costs, as these costs can get into thousands of dollars, but I have little sympathy for the person who gets a puppy then complains two weeks later when it is sick that they cannot afford to take it to the vet, what on earth were they doing getting a puppy in the first place? My sympathies are with the pup.

The same thing for the person who breeds there dog then finds themselves in an emergency situation requiring a caesarian section, a common risk in breeding some dogs, and complains they cannot afford it – again, then why did they bred their dog?

For the lower income people there are many cheap pets, or simply do as I did (I use to work part time for minimum wage only but always had money for my pet's needs), live frugally and below your means, and if you cannot do that – do not get a pet.

There is also no excuse for not spaying or neutering a cat or dog, if this is a financial concern you think you cannot make, adopt one that has already been fixed rather than taking one that still requires this somewhat expensive surgery – also note it is cheaper to fix male animals than females.

I could go on and on, the point is most people have money to spend on their pets, but have chosen to spend it on other things instead.   To those complaining that they cannot afford vet care for their pet, I ask "How much is your cell phone bill?".  Your pet is a financial commitment, deal with it!

After Hours Pet Emergency Care

So it's Friday night and your pet is sick and your excuse for not taking it to the veterinarian is that they are closed. What a load of crap. Nearly all veterinarians offer 24 hour emergency care. Get your pet to a vet now because if you wait until Monday your pet could be dead, or in worse condition.

The real reason people do not want to take their sick pet to the vet after hours is either due to laziness, on my gosh they might miss the hockey game, or due to the fact that they do not want to pay extra for emergency care.

Most veterinarians have an additional charge for calls made after hours. Big deal, this is your pet's life we may be talking about. The very least you can do is call, find out what the extra charge is, and decide if you can afford it.

You may even be able to talk to the veterinarian, explain the symptoms, and have them suggest if the pet should come in right away, or if it can wait until morning. You should know most will suggest bringing in the pet at the time, because depending what is wrong, waiting could threaten its chances for survival.

You should never wait if your pet has a fever of 2 degrees more than normal, if it is very young, very old, or pregnant and been straining to deliver for more than 1 hour. Black smelly diarrhea, can be a sign of parvo, this cannot wait. If your pet is unconscious you need to call a vet, also do not take the “wait and see” approach if it has swallowed poison. CALL THE VET!

Of course many after hour, especially weekend, veterinarian appointments can be avoided if you simply take it to the vet if symptoms first show up during regular open hours rather than hoping they go away on their own. There is nothing worse, and more frustrating to a vet, than a person who noticed their pet was sick on Wednesday but they waited until it was really sick on Saturday night before calling for help.

When you call a veterinarian after hours you either get their answering service, or may get the veterinarian themselves. Be respectful of them and their time, they do not want to drop what they are doing any more than you do, but it is their job. Do not argue about having to pay extra simply because they served you after hours. When was the last time you had a car mechanic look at your car at 2 in the morning?

Tips on When to Take a Sick Dog to the Vet
Tips on When to Take a Sick Cat to the Vet

Your pet is  your responsibility, when it is ill, no matter what day or time,  you need to suck it up and... well... deal with it.

Veterinarians are Not Charities

I am so tired of people looking for free help for their sick pets or complaining about the high cost of veterinary care for their pets.

Seriously if you cannot afford vet care, do not get a pet.

Vets are not charities. They paid for education, they should get paid for their time and the equipment needed to help your pet. Veterinarians have many expenses you may not be aware of.

Some veterinarians have their own clinics, others work out of a clinic, or are employed by a vet clinic. They have receptionists to pay, anesthesiologists to pay, kennel staff to pay, and want a wage themselves. There is a lot of expensive equipment in a veterinarian clinic, everything from cages, microscopes, x-ray machines and so forth. They have to pay for their building, land, and taxes.

If your pet requires shots they have to use a new needle every time, plus what ever they use on your pet.

Why should you, a pet owner, assume that the vet should do this at, or below, their cost? Why should they be held any different than another professional?

A veterinarian is often on call, their meals could be interrupted at any time. Livestock vets hardly get any sleep during calving, lambing, and foaling, seasons as they are often called at night to attend an animal in distress, shouldn't this be worth more? Their weekends are often broken up with emergency calls and sometimes with calls from people who simply didn't want to call on Friday and decided to wait to see if their pet got better, only to have it get worse after hours.

Nobody forces you to have a pet, and if you do have a pet out of a medical need, that pet, and its medical bills, are tax deductible.

There is no excuse for anyone who gets a puppy or kitten to say they cannot afford veterinary care for that animal and to then complain about the cost. “Why are vets so expensive?” should not even be a thought.

Unless you yourself work in a charity as a volunteer you should not expect others to work for free. Veterinarian care is not cheap, and rarely free, veterinarian's are people who have jobs they deserve to be paid for, so well... deal with it.

Other Reading

Concerns with Free Online Veterinarian Help

Your Dog Needs a Veterinarian, Deal with it

Have you spent anytime on Internet pet forums, Yahoo!Answers, or WebAnswers? If so, you know how common it is for a dog owner to post a serious question about their pets health.

My dog is bleeding what should I do? My dog has not eaten in a week, what should I do? My dog has lost weight and cannot stand up, I am so worried about my beloved pet, what should I do? For crying out loud people, you should get your dog, your beloved pet, to a veterinarian for proper care and attention that's what you should do. Quit wasting time on the Internet asking strangers who many not have a clue about dog health what to do with your suffering dog.

Really, is this such a hard message to get? Why do people spend ages on-line looking for free help from people they do not even know when a real veterinarian is only a phone call away?

I don't care if its midnight, Christmas day, or the fourth of July, if your pet is deathly ill, suffering, or in pain, it needs veterinarian attention, and your vet is the best one to turn to. Veterinarians may not be in the office all the time, but are on-call and will provide service when needed, it's one of the things that suck most about the job I am sure... but they will do it.

Sometimes people like to throw it out that they cannot take their beloved dog to the vet because they have no money. Hmm, they can spend $3.00 a day on coffee from Starbucks but cannot manage to save money for emergency vet care? If you're that broke, why did you even get a dog? The worst is when a person gets a new pup, the pup has black smelly diarrhea, and they say they cannot afford a vet, I just want to yell at them if they just got a pup, and are already too broke to save its life, what where they thinking getting a puppy?

I wrote an article some time ago about certain common pet health problems, I warned people that in most cases their pet needs to see a real veterinarian, I even added the statement at the bottom that I am not a veterinarian and that you should not trust strangers on the Internet to give pet advice, yet this article gets bombarded with people asking for free online advice for their pet with a real medical concern.

Please, if your dog is sick, in pain, has lost weight, is falling over, has not eaten, or is just not acting like it normally does, you need to see a veterinarian. And yes, veterinarians do cost money, deal with it.