I am new to this Group

[redstatebluegirl]

I have 4 longhair doxies, standard size. It has been a tough year for us, we had 3 over 15 years old that went to the rainbow bridge in the past 18 months. We have adopted 2 older (age 7 and 9) who needed forever homes, we have a 2 year old who has a disbility (leg issue) and a 14 year old.

Long story short, does anyone have any tips on keeping the vet bills down to something reasonable? We can afford these pups, we did ortho surgery for the youngest one earlier this year but it seems like the costs keep escalating.

We like our vets we have been with them a long time but the younger ones in the office seem to jump quickly to costly tests and things. I have had doxies all my life, I can handle back issues pretty well, crate them, give them some muscle relaxers for a week or so and 9 times out of 10 they are fine. I need the vet for the drugs. Now they won't do that without $200 worth of bloodwork and $200 worth of xrays. I know the breed well, I have only been wrong about a pulled or strained muscle once and we knew it 2 days in and asked the vet for xrays.

We don't have kids, these fur babies are our family. We love them and want them to have the best care but wow are the vets getting silly expensive.

[NYC_SKP]

1. I love my vet of over 25 years, too, but vet care has become like human care...

With my newest puppy, my vet found what she said is a blood test number outside of the normal range, so I should be getting prescriptions for that.

Also, a new food available only from the vet.

It goes on and on, like my own care, new tests, new drugs, miracle foods, new expenses.

I miss the old days.

[redstatebluegirl]

2. Me too!

To get vet insurance on these pups would be over 200 a month! I can see why people do not want pets anymore. I could not live without ours so I just need to pay the bills and use my best judgement on what is best and when it is not in the babies best interest.

[meti57b]

3. Are the younger vets, possibly "interns"?

The reason I ask, .... within driving distance of us, there is a very large practice that has veterinary specialists and surgeons. They are also 24hour emergency.

Our regular vet is closed two days a week and if one of my cats gets sick on those days, I tend to take him to this 24hr practice.

Point of my story, when you bring a pooch or a cat in to the 24hr, you see an "intern". It appears to be company policy to think up every conceivable test in the book and tell you that it is what is needed to find out why the cat is sick. They present you with a mega-bucks estimate, and if you give them the okay, they go ahead with a whole bunch of tests and a huge bill.

If I wait until the next day when my regular vet is open, the bill is really very reasonable and i sometimes wonder how she is able to give such a reasonable price for all that she does. It's just that I don't like my cat to have to wait for a day for treatment if he is sick. However, it is also tough on the cat to have to put up with a bunch of unneeded tests.

Is it possible that your vet is evolving into this intern/expensive tests thing?

[redstatebluegirl]

4. You know I don't know for sure.

They call them Dr. so and so. I think I may begin to ask for the older vet who owns the practice, we used to see him exclusively but they stopped asking if we had a vet of choice. I had one last week who told us we needed $1000 worth of tests and surgery on our 14 soon to be 15 year old who has a heart condition. I know she could not tolerate a surgery with her heart and I question the cost/quality of life issues.

I may ask about those young doctors next time I go in. Thanks for the heads up.

[meti57b]

5. What I am describing .... it isn't the "interns" per se.......

it is that this specialty/24hr veterinary practice's style of doing business is to give you an inexperienced (low-salary) intern, (so that they do not need to have on staff so many of the higher-salaried experienced vets) and throw a bunch of tests at the animal and see if any of the tests come up with anything.

I had 14-year old cat to this 24hr veterinary practice, a couple months ago. The cat had some kind of cold and was running temp of 103F degrees. This is not a killer temp, but it is higher than normal. They had my cat three days, they of course did not improve or get rid of the cold or get his temp down. By then, my regular vet was open (she is closed Wednesday and Sunday). She kept my cat about three days and managed to get his temp down and get rid of his cold/flu or whatever it was. Her price was so reasonable I don't know how she really runs a business with low prices like that. This is a vet who graduated UC Davis Veterinary School and has 15 years of private practice experience.

She also said that "103F" is "high, but it is not in the "emergency range" of the really high temps. She advised that if it happens again, to wait a day and bring him in to her when she opens.

I might add, I don't go to her because of low prices, I go to her because she is the best vet in the area.

[redstatebluegirl]

6. Ours is not 24 hour.

The primary vet in this practice is in his late 50's he is a great vet which is why we chose him. He has never gone to extreme measures unless he feels it will help the animal. He always takes into consideration the financial issues related to this.

We thought we would have a few months without large bills and then our older one got so sick. This morning the younger one is down with some kind of muscle pull or strain. I may have to leave retirement and get a job to take care of these lovey fur kids. It honestly has gotten much worse in the past year or so with the special food, all the drugs and such.

Thanks for your help!

[Curmudgeoness]

7. Welcome aboard! You will be happy here.

This is one of the nicest places on DU.

As to your vet issues and the cost of your babies' health care, I have a few suggestions. First, if you trust the older vet who you have been with for years, specify that you want to have appointments with him. I have had to do this at my vet's office as well. I believe that the vets who are hired help get bonuses for the amount of money they bring in where I go (although I am not sure, but it sure looks that way). I am sure that they would not admit it if I asked, but there is something there.

I also ask a lot of questions. Once, they wanted to do a lot of tests on my cat, and I asked about the course of treatment if it is "this" as opposed to "that" condition. It turned out that the treatments would probably be the same. I asked them to try this treatment first, and if it did not help, we would move to the next step. Often, it seems that they are just curious, or they want a definitive diagnosis instead of a guess. I have let them know that, personally, I don't care what they call it, I just want a solution. The original vet does this, and treats with the least expensive treatment first.

If it is a time when I have to see another vet, like the day off for the old vet and a sick animal, I stand firm about what they do. They usually try to do a complete physical on my current cat, even though it is only an anal gland expression that he needs. I stop them in their tracks. I will not pay for a full office visit and exam just so they can feel like they did everything.

I also understand that some tests can be so helpful to the vet. We do have to understand that our animals cannot talk and tell us how they feel, what the problem is, or where it hurts. Vets have embraced these new techniques they have to find what the problem is, and sometimes it is the best way.

Good luck keeping the costs down. You are in control to a large extent.

[redstatebluegirl]

8. Thank You!

I take her tomorrow and we will see Dr. Russell, he is the one I trust. I have written down a lot of questions. Funny, she is pretty frisky today... Love her to pieces!

Thanks for the warm welcome!

[TorchTheWitch]

9. always make appts. with the doctors that you trust

My vet clinic though saintly has several doctors but I always see either Dr. B or Dr. P since they're the ones I trust the most and have the most experience. I also think it's much easier on the dogs if they consistently see one or two doctors all the time so don't have to deal with strange people to them along with all the other horrors they perceive at the vets. Of course though in some kind of emergency you likely aren't going to be able to chose which doctors at the clinic you want to go with, but for general appts. stick with those you know aren't going to try finagling the bill and have the most knowledge and experience where it's more likely they might know know what a problem is without all the diagnostics. If you feel you're getting hit with excessive diagnostics only from certain doctors at your vet clinic make your appts. with only the doctors you trust.

If you like this vet clinic and want to stick with them let them know about financial difficulties. My vet knows when I have financial problems and not only does their utmost to keep costs down but has practically given away meds to me, like when my previous dog had cancer and needs lots of meds I could never have afforded at their regular price. They recognize that long term good clients are the ones they should be giving breaks to in troubled times to help ensure their continued loyalty.

I always am very frank with my vets concerning my dog's care and treatment so they know that I'm always looking for possible alternative treatments like some kind of over-the-counter med that might work just as well as a prescription one and choosing which diagnostic tests are most needed (if any) according to what I can afford. They always give me a running tally with what they do so I can decide what I can afford to do and what I can't.

I know everyone here is nodding along with your feelings that your fur babies are your family... we all feel that way here. My dog is my very best friend and my son, and having gone through two other losses with dogs that were the same I'm not ashamed to admit that their passings were just as devastating to me as losing a human family member.

I'm so sorry for your many losses in such a short time span. It's hard enough just to deal with one every dozen years or so.

I'm glad that you found our forum. Now we demand to see pictures of your fur babies to oooh and aaaah over. LOL!

[redstatebluegirl]

10. How do I share pictures here, I've never done it before.

I admit I'm tech illiterate

[TorchTheWitch]

12. first you need an account somewhere to park them on the internet

Most people use Photobucket or Flickr. You can sign up for either one of these for free and store your photos at those sites in your account. I'm also pretty sure that both of them also allow you to set your account to private so that you can chose who gets to see your photos.

Once you have an account say, at Photobucket, then you follow the steps they tell you in how to upload your photos into your account. Once you do that all you need for them to be shown anywhere you want on DU is to copy the url for each photo's destination in your account, paste it into a post you make here and DU automatically shows the photo once you hit the Reply button for your post.

Personally, though I use Flickr since I forgot the password for my Photobucket account, I think Photobucket is just easier to use than Flickr. I'm not very tech savy myself at all, but I had no problem starting an account at Photobucket and following the steps to put my pictures in my account there, but I think Flickr was more complicated for me use at first.

Here's the links to get you started at either Photobucket or Flickr...

http://m.photobucket.com/
Click the link in the top right hand corner that says "Sign Up" to start an account

http://www.flickr.com/
Click the big pink link bar in the center of the page to start an account

Let me know if you run into any problems.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. Welcome to our group. The only group on DU where unconditional love is the very theme.

[IrishAyes]

13. A belated welcome to our group; sorry, I've been away a bit

But I send you best wishes with your furkids.

For all the griping I do about the tiny town where I retired in RedNeckLand for financial reasons, there are a few great blessings here. Chief among them the local vet. We're close to the same age so I dread his possible retirement, though he might give up livestock and stick to household pets when he's forced to slow down.

Anyway, Doc reminds me of James Herriott for all the world. He has the magic touch, and even my chows adored him. Especially these days he's even willing to extend credit to a reliable person - won't take credit cards. And people who need a pet put down don't have to drag it up to the office and compound its misery. If you're willing to wait, he will stop by at your house after hours and not charge extra either.

Fortunately, although I've spent much of my life in big cities and on the move, I've also had plenty of off-grid experience to go along with it, and I'm pretty adept myself at minor surgeries and such. Even took care of my big toe when it was split nearly stem to stern in a bad accident on a weekend and I couldn't drive myself to a hospital even if there'd been one around. When a doctor saw me later on another matter, she said I did every bit as good a job as the emergency room could have. So I do virtually everything my animals ever needed. I also learned a lot of practical medicine from Native American healers along the way.

The life path of most people is quite different, I realize. And their knowledge in their own field will far exceed mine if I have any at all. But I still think it's a good idea for everyone to learn what they can about animal first aid at least. Don't have anything to recommend, but I'm sure there must be books and/or websites devoted to that subject. Even in a metropolitan area, you never know when quick action might be required to save a pet's life, and it's no time for anyone to be squeamish.

[redstatebluegirl]

15. We more than know that :-)

We spent 3500 on a doxie that needed major surgery on his front legs in December of last yar. His rehab is almost complete so we won't need to see the surgeon any more. My big question was that I have 16 year old doxie with a bad heart. She now has a tumor in her mouth the vet didn't see during routine dental and now they want to do major surgery on her.

I called a vet I know at a teaching hospital and he said those melanomas do not have a good outcome. He said he doubted she could survive the surgery and if she did she would still have major pain because of where it is located. She would lose all of her bottom teeth and part of her jaw.

It is really hard to try and determine when to stop

[redstatebluegirl]

17. I have always thought that if they don't go naturally in your arms

they let you know when they are ready to go to the rainbow bridge. She is still eating, she plays a little, not much anymore and the pain meds and heart meds give her a quality of life for now. We see our vet this coming week, her tumor is getting really large and it has to be uncomfortable. I want the vet to tell me if she is in pain.

We are seeing the older vet who owns the practice. He has always been reasonable in terms of extreme measures.