Charlie the Moodle came home yesterday! Yay!
I got such a pleasant surprise when they handed me the $2000 bill. Wow, so “cheap”! I quickly paid it … then realised it was for Charlie the cat, not Charlie the dog. My anxiety levels started rising (again) as they started printing out the new receipt …. which turned out to be for $2972. Gulp.
Horrendous, but not as bad as I’d been worrying it would be after a friend called to say she’d paid $7000 to save her cat … then it ran away … She didn’t have pet insurance either.
Here’s a woebegone pic of Charlie after he used up all his energy dashing outside the minute he got home to expel enough wee to fill a small lake:
Bilbo was thrilled to get Charlie back and immediately started trying to play with him. Charlie was so not in the mood for playing and suggested via vicious growls and snapping that he might kill his brother from another mother if he didn’t eff off.
So Bilbo retreated behind our legs to gaze nervously at the patient.
All the vets and nurses said they loved Charlie and thought he was the sweetest dog – they felt so sorry for him that they were popping up to the local charcoal chicken shop to buy treats to tempt him to eat. They wouldn’t think he was so sweet if they saw his temper around family members …
And now I have the fun job of trying to get him to take tablets twice a day.
Poor Charlie. Poor me. Poor credit card.
So much for that new computer I was going to buy to replace my current geriatric clunker.
The big question is: do I get pet insurance or continue flying by the seat of my pants? His knee replacement won’t be covered as it’s a pre-existing condition. Do you have pet insurance?
Song of the day: ABBA “Money, money, money”
housegoeshome 
Never bothered with pet insurance. Most vets do a payment plan – even 20+ yrs ago when we had a little white kitten catch its leg jumping a fence & breaking it (little bastard went & got himself run over 6 months later).
I’m thinking since he has pre-existing medical conditions it might not be worth it.
Alana – you mentioned knee replacement. Did he have an accident? If he did, then perhaps you can claim on someone or something else’s insurance if there is a liability question….
The knee replacement is due to a breeding issue in oodles unfortunately
No pet insurance here Alana. And Dog has just had a knee replacement. Ouch! her and pocket. We are lucky though cos she has been a healthy girl. Just a knee and a toe nail and a broken tooth – yeh maybe not as lucky as I thought first up. Maybe insurance would have been good, but now it’s too late. She’s 8 and a half. Hope your Doggie is much improved very soon. Lovely looking fella!
I need to talk to you more about the knee replacement down the track. It sounded like it was pretty harrowing for you and your pup.
Yes, I do. German Shepherds can get all sorts of things wrong with them – 6 and a half years on we’re still OK though. Crossing fingers and everythjng else as I type this.
I really didn’t research the pet thing very carefully. It turns out oodles are very prone to these knee problems.
I had pet insurance for my toy poodle, but so much was not covered (annual teeth cleaning, annual injections etc) that we always seemed to be shelling out money to the vet anyway. And the insurance cost a bomb, plus the dog lived until she was almost 20 so it felt like we were haemorrhaging money all of the time.
Eight years ago we got another dog (a Powderpuff) and this time we didn’t insure her. What we do is to take the money we’d normally have paid in premiums and put it in a high interest account that we don’t touch. That’s our “vet fund” and if she needs treatment, we take it from that account. So far, so good. She’s only had one emergency trip to the vet since we’ve had her (for Sarcoptic mange thanks to a fox in the area), but should she need surgery or such, we have enough to pay for it.
I’m glad that Charlie is feeling a bit better. Poor little thing – like you, I fret when my furball is feeling unwell.
Thank you for all the good advice Marie, it’s very much appreciated. Charlie is a bit better every day, though still very subdued.