Big vet bill or have the cat put down?

One of our moggies was got by a dog today. Apart from a small pucture wound, she seems OK – vet checked her over, antibiotics, pain killers etc. £30 all in.

Now yes I know they should be insured, and its on my to do list, but its one of those things that I’ve just not got around to.

So you’ve no pet insurance and little pussy has been hit by a car – she’ll live, but cost £1,200 to fix.

Do you
a) Pay up; or
b) Go for the £20, no more vet bills for you my little bundle of fur, injection to end it all?

I like our cats, but I’m not sure I like them that much.

Whaddya think?

pay up – worth more than money!

c) Just add water & a lid

Microwave?

Agree with Ralph. Pay up 🙂

For a cat I’d go for the £20 option. For my dog, well, he’s a keeper.

Are you serious????

Are you serious????

Well there has to be a point at which you say I don’t want to or can’t afford to pay that hasn’t there?

pay up

Pay up and kick yourself for not insuring it.

One of ours got run over last year. Dislocated hip, punctured and collapsed lung, torn diaphragm. His treatment cost our insurer (More Than) over £2000. That’s 18 years of premiums in one go!

Would you put your wife, child, mother down? I simply cannot believe a cat owner would even think like this, you don’t desrve to own a cat. We have 3 siamese and they are just as much a part of our family as anyone else.

pay up, no question.

I would pay up if it happened to one of my cats. But then I make the decision when I first take on a pet. If I’m not prepared to do what’s necessary to take care of it, then I won’t take it on.

Im an owner of persian cats who has just lost one of his at crimbo..
I always look at the QUALITY of life the cat will have, Then and only then can you look at the cash flow..
In your case it sounds as if you really cant afford to splash out…(none of my animals ,cats and dogs are insured either) Id say go speak nice to the vet like i do and he will let you pay it up.
As loddrik says,..they are part of your family.so look after them as best you can.

In december last year, our cat stopped eating and went listless, so off i pop her to the vet, appears shed got a dodgy tooth, and was stopping her eating, so she got booked in for next day for a bit of tooth work, 80 quid, shes now got no teeth, but is happy; now ive got tooth ache and blood tests tomorrow as well as various other symptoms,cant find a dentist, had a nice chat to nhs direct, but the cat Lilly was worth it.

Wonders if the vet will do my tooth.

Would you put your wife, child, mother down?
Noticed mother in law isn’t on the list.

Air Rifle…

Pay up.

I like pets but i would draw the line at that kind of money…..it would be the big sleep from me i`m afraid.

There has to be a line somewhere – and it will be different for different folk. Myself I’d pay a few hundred but no way would I or could I pay a few thousand. I simply don’t have the money

had to have my cat, Jet, put down a few years back. fat bugger had a stomach prob. his gut kept ballooning up. got it sorted twice and on the thrid time back to the vet she said she couldn’t operate, only let the fluid out. he wouldn’t live on much longer despite regular visits to the vets.

most cutting thing i’ve ever done. giving the go ahead to end a life. bugger, i’m sitting here now and my eyes are welling up….

cats are horrid evil animals who shit in my partially sighted fathers garden, i’ll pay the £20 for you.

I think you’re either a cat person or a dog person, I’d go for the £20 option. That said when the time came for my boxers to go (cancer) I cried like a baby, but they still went, at the end of the day its only a pet and its going to die sooner or later, throwing a few thousand quid away to give it a few extra months/years of questionable quality of life is just for the owners benefit.

Pay up and/or stop trolling! Animals are much better value than humans.

We had to have our cat put down just before Christmas 07, she was nearly 22 though. She had basically gone totally insane, senile dementure really took hold and she would start having hissing fits for no reason, would crap herself cos she was so scared of something that wasn’t there etc.

It was just before my 5th Birthday when we got her, almost 22 years was unbelievable, but even talking about her now is making me start to weep! She was far beyond a “member of the family”. I mean, I lost my Mum at 14, so know the cat far better than I did my own Mum even!

All things are relative though, you have to weigh up the cat’s potential quality of life after the op though, as well as obviously the cash! There’s no way I could afford a £1200 vet bill right now, so if I have a cat again, it would definitely be insured as I would be gutted to let finances come before being able to save the cat. Of course, things are relative though. We have had other cats that have lasted only 3 or 4 years before sadly being run over, and yes it hurts a lot, but 3 or 4 years of memories doesn’t have quite the emotional tug that 22 years do!

@Mboy + Alpin Ive had long lived cats, too. One of them saved my life, literally! She was more than a friend, and sorely missed. That said, (Ahem) I’m a dog man. (Harumph!)< wipe eye mode/>

have the cat put down and give the remaining 1180 quid to some charity giving clean drinking water to orphans in the congo or something.

Trampus – how did the cat save your life? (good name btw, been watching Virginian re-runs recently)

I’d pay up, my pets are family members. But it doesn’t sit well knowing what $1200 would do in the third world. Bigrich has a valid point

My parents picked up a stray rotweiler that became a fiathful family friend and protector for 12 years. They paid a lot to have a tumor the size of a grapefruit removed from his abdomen and for chemo. Then there were ongoing meds. The vet said there was no prescedent of the treatment lengthening a dogs life by more than 18months but he lasted over 4 years of quality life after that. And when he died I cried like a little girl.

Money well spent condidering some of the other things it could go on.

I would think hard about what would happen were the positions reversed. Would your cat really pay out 1200 quid to keep you alive? Would it be able to raise the money even if it wanted to? If the answer is no on both counts, I think it’s hard to justify keeping it.

Uplink I find you contribution to this thread offensive, if you’ve got nothing better to say **** off.

Put it down mate, you need to consider any suffering that the animal may suffer in future. Its sad, but going all out to save it will be oin your interest not the cats.

I thought Uplinks post was quite amusing. Just chill out will you.

One of our cats? I’d get it put down.
Our dog? I’d sell everything I owned, it’d be like putting down one of my kids.
Harsh but if the cats want to be treated like one of the family they should start behaving like one rather than treating us like a hotel. Cats today eh?

BWD makes a valid point. Were the roles reversed and you were run over by a car, the only calculation the cat would be making would be should I wait for the body to stop twitching before feasting on it.

We took Eddi, our cat of 15yrs to the vet a couple of weeks ago for her checkup and ‘program’ anti flea injection. Whilst there, the vet told us that Eddi had a serious (3 on a scale of 1-5), heart murmur and that we needed to book her in for a raft of tests.

So, on Wednesday there, after £200 worth of tests, and one heartbreakingly pathetic little cat returned to us, we’re told that she doesn’t have a heart murmur, but her heartbeat is above average, and her blood pressure below average. This is apparently indicative of ‘something’. The vet now wants to do more tests and wants to know if we wish to refer Eddi to a heart specialist.

Now I love my cat to bits, but she’s 15yrs old and more importantly, she’s a cat. She doesn’t know what the hell is going on. She only knows that we’ve been taking her somewhere she doesn’t like. So on Saturday, we’re taking her back to the vet where she’s to get her blood pressure and heartbeat measured again. Quite frankly though, unless the vet can convince me she’s in pain and suffering, I’m taking her home there and then. I’ll continue to take her to the vet’s for checkups, but if she develops a heart problem that can’t be treated by sneaking some pills into her Munchies, then as long as she’s not suffering, I’ll let her enjoy her last few years without the stress of any invasive procedures. 😕

B.

Can you afford it? If yes pay up. If not dont. Cat being get by dogs is part of the big circle of life.
I don’t get “animal lovers” that mess up with mother nature. Do you think that the cat would have surgery in the wild?
My cat died of a tumour one year before I went to the UK. We refused to pay the bill because we couldn’t afford it and we though it will only make him suffer for longer.

I had to have my beloved Stanley the Ginger cat put to sleep November 22 2007, He had a stroke whilst I was away for the weekend , which was covered by the insurance in the summer

A couple of months later came back and he was ill again, rushed him to the vets and he had to be rushed in and stayed at the vets for 11 days, apparently he had a diabetic incident, which he recovered from but he’d had another stroke and couldn’t walk , of course he was only covered up to £500 , which he went way over, ended up paying another £500 on top and he still had to be put down

I’d stamp on its head and save 20 quid.

Not many cats survive being hit by a car.
If he did need £1200 spending on him he’d probably be in a pretty bad way anyway. So would it be fair to put him through a long recovery ?
Decision made.

Slight aside…we had our dog put down about 8 weeks ago. He wasn’t in any visible pain, but from having all his problems explained in an objective fashion by a vet, it was clear that we did the kindest thing for the poor chap. We could have thrown £1000 at him, & the vet would have gladly treated him & kept him going, but he’s in a better place now & despite missing him I know I did the kindest thing.

RIP my old mate Fatty McTavish.

I’d stamp on Poindexter’s head for free. 🙂

Member of the family. If I could afford it I’d pay up, even if it meant eating bread and milk for a month. My cats have always been very integral, loving pets that return all the affection given and more without demanding anything other than a tin of food a day and some clean water – it wouldnt sit right with me to know that I’d returned that with “ah well, its only a cat, bin it”.

One of my cats was hit by a car, severed his spinal chord just near his tail base, he had to have it amputated as it dragged around, but he also spent about a month with no control of his bowels or bladder. All it took was a little care and time and he was back on his feet in full control and happy as ever – he used to meet me on the way home from school (many moons ago now!) at the far end of the road, run up and jump on my shoulder and sit purring until we got to the house, and not for food, because he had food and water left out to eat any time. People assume cats are little more than furry parasites incapable of affection and that dogs are somehow better, they’re wrong!

I also would stamp on Poindexters head for free, and throw in a chisel-through-the-teeth shortly before for good measure.