My parents saved up for years to get a really nice leather furniture set for the living room and were about to pull the trigger on it when the dog started having seizures.
They took the dog to the vet, and it stayed overnight and kept getting worse. In the meantime, my Mom still had to go to work, and when she got the call that Skippy needed to go to a canine neurologist near her office, she ended up calling my aunt (teacher who was home for the summer) and asked her if she could drive the dog from the vet by the house to the neurologist’s office near my Mom’s work as a favor.
Turns out dog neurologists are really expensive, but they’d just moved a bunch of money into their spending account to buy furniture so were able to cover it. And now my Aunt thinks my parents can casually drop 10 grand without having to call the bank first. The couch had to wait a few more years.
Skippy wasn’t expected to live, but she powered through. That was in 2015, and she’s still around. She has Addison’s disease and has to have monthly steroid injections on top of daily steroid pills, and stress and separation anxiety are still dangerous for her, but she’s a trooper. She’s the biggest Chihuahua you’ll ever meet due to the steroids, but it’s all muscle.
I’ve held my dog in my lap while my partner drove us to the 24h vet. My job was to hold the thread sticking out of my pup’s mouth so he didn’t swallow more of it. “How long is a piece of string?” indeed.
Vet induced vomiting. Pup was fine. String was plenty long.
Nope, my last dog just loved sticking her head through cat doors and pulling it back too fast and giving herself 4 separate ear hematomas. What an idiot. I’d give so much to have another day with that idiot though…
Dude, I did this as a kid.
Mine just slipped on some ice and tore his cruciate ligament requiring VERY costly surgery.
Insure your pets.
This is my dog. He’s like 12 and he still does this shit. The last one was woodchips and it was like 4500$ I had a panic attack and full on meltdown in the vets office
I love pets. This is why I’ll have no more new pets. The bills just are too much.
Biggest vet bill I ever had for any pet was when my husky got pyrometra.
I’ve got a really cheap bullet that solves this problem. Not unless they’re really suffering though. I don’t want to spend that much money on me.
I had a dog who started throwing up after every meal. The vet initially thought it was pancreatitis, so put her on meds and sent her home. Nothing improved so we took her back and they decided to open her up. They found two athletic headbands and a sock in her digestive tract.
Sounds like a sheep problem.
One of my dogs has insurance because he eats things that aren’t food and I’m very worried about him.
Getting it ahead of time is good. Pet insurance still declines for pre-existing conditions and is very liberal on the term.
One of my cats had pancreatitis and was hospitalized. I didn’t have pet insurance and looked into for next time. If he gets pancreatitis again they wouldn’t cover it.
I read horror stories that they consider anything pre-existing. In OP’s example if the dog ate another rock it would be pre-existing.
Insurance companies don’t make money by paying out
Read: they don’t make money by doing their job
oh you may misunderstand. their job is to make money for shareholders. us plebs are just here to exploit and screw over.
That’s why insurance is a fucked up system. It’s a tension where you need it in case the worst happens, but they try to weasel out of helping you as much as possible and rip you off. In an ideal world insurance wouldn’t exist, or at least not work the way it does
Back in 2018 when vet cost was much lower, we had a 120€ vet bill because our 3 month old dog refused to walk. Turned out she had a mosquito bite on her belly near the left hind leg and she was just being dramatic.
Vet prices are absolutely absurd these days. It’s fucking bullshit that they are exploiting people like this. If your response is, “just buy pet insurance”, you are part of the problem. Pet insurance should NEVER have become a thing.
It’s not vets that are the problem. It’s private companies buying up small business vetrinarians and then raising prices at all of their clinics. This is made even easier by the fact that said company also owns all of the drug companies as well.
My state has a massive vet shortage because of this exact situation. A company came in and bought up all of the small vet clinics in town, those amazing vets left because they weren’t getting paid enough.
Now we not only have less clinics to choose from, and the ones we can choose from seem like different clinics but are actually the same business, but we also have no interest in professionals living and working here because they wouldn’t make enough.
Please stop blaming vets for something that is clearly the fault of greedy corporate billionaires.
Seriously, what is the point of pet insurance, when no vet accepts it?
I am of the opinion that Medicare for All should include pets. No living creature should have to pay for healthcare.
It’s hard enough to convince some people that every citizen should get healthcare. Now try to convince them to give healthcare to every living creature.
All voters require healthcare for themselves. Not all voters have pets though.
The vet doesn’t have to take it, you pay for what ever and they reimburse you. Worked great for my two dogs until a certain age then it’s not worth it anymore
All you’ve done is convince me it’s easy to scam you.
It’s the same basic principle by which human health insurance companies operate. Make maximum profit by taking in premiums and denying as many claims as possible. Our whole system is fucked. In 2025 United Healthcare made $9.425 billion in profit. How many people had to die or live in abject misery to enable that?
they never didn’t reimburse me pretty much full costs. I think outside the $500 yearly minimum
It’s great that is your experience. How do they make money?
Monthly premuims I paid weren’t cheap at the end
Nothing wrong with pet insurance being a option. Here many people get it because a random 500€ bill in the wrong month can really fuck you up. Unfortunately older dogs aren’t eligible.
Question is, why are vets increasing their prices? Is there just not enough competition? Insurance alone can’t be the answer.
why are vets increasing their prices?
They’re getting bought up by PE.
Bingo. The same private-equity machine buying up veterinary practices is increasingly tied to the insurance meant to make those practices affordable. We’ve watched the same consolidation play out in healthcare, housing, and countless other necessities: control the service, raise the price, then sell people the financing or insurance they need to survive it.
The system increasingly seems designed around one principle: any dollar left in an ordinary person’s pocket is a dollar someone higher up has failed to extract. And the most frustrating part is that, as individuals, there seems to be almost nothing we can do except keep paying.
This website can help pet owners know which clinics are PE-owned to help make informed decisions regarding veterinary care: https://privateequityvet.org/
Because vet practices are getting bought up by private equity and monopolizing
My cat would like a word. She ate an entire KFC drumstick, bones included. 12 hours at Kitty ER, and $1200.
