Vets should offer a no pet no fee service.

They do. I don’t have a pet, and a vet has never charged me a fee.

Cost us about £450 to have a guinea pig bladder stone removed and subsequent follow ups, patient didn’t survive either. Previous guinea cost over £200 for sedation, x ray and put to sleep. I’ve told the remaining one he better be cheap when he goes.

Seriously, surely this is a wind up – or someone with far too much cash?

OK I missed the blood everywhere bit so apologies to the OP. 😳

It can depend where you live too. I live in a rural area and the Vet is ludicrously cheap, is around a third the price of treatment in the big city.

I guess they tried charging a local farmer a poncy £687 for treating a cat ! And decided against it.

So, the bill for a blood test, anaesthetic, tooth removal and medication…

£687!!!!!!

Not bad for out of hours work. This private human dentist is charging “from £1500” for General Anaesthesia and dentistry, during normal working hours.

As has been pointed out, the daytime fees are likely to have been much lower. Your cat’s tooth didn’t become rotten at 7pm on that day. Doubtless you could have looked after your animal’s welfare and dental health in the weeks and months preceeding it coming to a head at 7pm?

Vets are expensive for sure. One bouncy ball removal from a border terriers stomach comes in at.

Worth every penny though that was a year ago it saved his life and he’s fitter than ever now.

I assume you mean livestock?
I can’t see a horse doctor coming out on a cold evening for £50…

Yes I was referring to horse vets. Small animal home visit out of hours is hundreds. Nothing like that for horse vet out of hours visit. Done lots of both sadly.

This thread has reminded me that I need to go to the vets to pay the bill for having our 21 year old cat put to sleep last Friday 🙁

I stayed 20 years ago with a French family who had a cat.

One day, the cat returned from a fight with an eye missing.

They stroked it a bit, cleaned it up, put some cotton wool in the bloody socket, called it a silly bugger, fed it and put it to bed. It woke up a good while later rather irritable and just got on with it. I don’t think a vet was involved.

This thread has reminded me to get pet insurance for our puppy.

Talking to small animal vets in bigger company run practices soon betrays the model of service, and over-service many use. I’ve spent enough time with vets to know there are some running honest good value practices, and some who are the equivalent of car main dealer service departments in their approach to milking the client.

I did wonder that when the told me I need an oil change for our cats….

I did wonder that when the told me I need an oil change for our cats….

Got to keep it purring nicely.

OH is a vet. She really doesnt get paid much out of the out of hours fees. It’s amazing where it all goes when you break it down. I’ve stayed overnight with her too so have seen the workload when you have animals in over night or when an RTA comes in and needs patching back together and keeping alive until it can be referred somewhere for major surgery on the next working day. They don’t do it for the money, they do it because they love animals. I wish she got half a doctors salary.

Try being a veterinary nurse who has the pleasure of being called out at all hours for the princely sum of national minimum **** wage, half the time because some incapable buffoon has allowed a known issue with their dog to go on for too bloody long.

Now imagine how much worse that rate of call out would be if the price was nice and affordable for everyone, allowing (encouraging) people to wait until they’ve had their dinner and then bring the animal down at their own convenience.

A veterinary practice is not the NHS, it is not cheap to run and quite often the staff you are dealing with are treated like absolute shit by some of the rudest, unintelligent idiots to walk the local pavements.

Why my other half chose this profession is beyond me, every time I try and ask her she get’s called out by a bloke whose dog is ‘making funny noises when he’s sleeping’

My new wonderful border collie (got in March this year, rescue) was limping after a walk. Broken cruciate ligament. I had it fixed but the bill came to a little short of £4,000.

Fortunately he was insured so they paid up, but even if he wasn’t it would have been money well spent. My dog is fantastic.

Seriously, surely this is a wind up – or someone with far too much cash?

you obviously don’t have an animal lover girlfriend!

Vet down the road took all of my cats teeth out for 75 quid, she was happy as anything after,

second vet, 35 quid for a chat and some tablets, luckily i refused the drip and more tablets and blood tests, freind paid 40 quid for the above, and her cat died next day after paying bill.My cat lived for another few months before suffering a stroke.

Try and shop around for a vet, or try PDSA, rspca etc.

You say that GPs surgeries don’t have on site diagnostic facilities, but i’ve recently opted for an additional service where the local PCT have installed a feline animal in one corner, and a furry yellow dog in the other.

It’s for CAT scans and LAB tests….

Boom boom…

DrP

Worth every penny though that was a year ago it saved his life and he’s fitter than ever now.

I think that’s the crux of it. The question becomes, “who are you actually doing it for?”

I had a cat who went missing, then turned up a fortnight later utterly broken. I took him to the out-of-hours vet who gave me a list of things wrong with him and said “I can treat him, I’d love to treat him, but he’ll need injections three times a day at regular intervals for the rest of his life.” I thought for a moment and then said, “logistics and cost aside, if I were to do that, would he be ok?” and the vet said “no, he’d still be very ill.” At which point the unfortunate Plan B became a no-brainer.

There’s little point in hemorrhaging money on vet bills, no matter how loved the pet, if you’re just prolonging the agony. That’s heartbreaking (and bloody expensive) for you and cruel to the animal. On the other hand if it’s a lump sum fix and you get your family member back healthy and happy, that’s a compelling argument.

Generally, I’d like to think that folk make sensible decisions and don’t keep pets who are suffering around for selfish sentimental reasons. In some ways, animals are better off than people in that respect.

Plan ‘B’
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3ctz3RTI-o&sns=em[/video]