We have lost track of what we've spent since last September when our young schnauzer was diagnosed with diabetes. Between blood curve tests, special food, insulin, lab work, exams and the latest was $2000 for catarat surgery. I look at it this way, we could have blown this money on a one week vacation but instead chose to use it to help "our family member"
Our Lab just had surgery for laryngeal paralysis (was going to suffocate and her airway was 3mm at the time of surgery) which ran us about $2700 total.
We've gotten a lot of snide comments from people about "why bother" but there was nothing else wrong with her. She's 11, but other than some hip arthritis is in fine shape. The choice was put down an otherwise healthy dog, let her suffocate, or do the surgery.
When we got her we made the commitment to fix what we could fix on her, if it broke and if it wasn't fixable then to let her go. This was fixable.
45K is a different story, though - we just don't have that kind of cash. Even what we paid for the dog surgery taxed our finances.
Next time we'll talk about getting pet insurance, though ::lol::, we were shocked at the bill from this episode.
LQ