Our 5 year old lab, Bella, developed a cyst on her hind leg that’s been growing for several weeks. Money is tight so we agreed to just keep an eye on it.

It doesn’t seem to bother her but over the past couple of weeks it’s tripled in size and it actually ruptured a couple days ago and started leaking some fluid, before closing back up.

So we scheduled an appointment with our local vet who, after looking at it, said she wouldn’t do the surgery on it (due to its size) and referred us to a clinic that has surgeons that can. So that was $120 spent to only tell us we need to go somewhere else.

I took time off work today to get Bella seen by the clinic we were referred to and, after their $130 consultation fee, they handed me an estimate of “$3,543.82 - $4,368.83” to have this surgery done.

Now how in the hell am I supposed to come up with that?!?!?

It’s outrageous. What do people do in these situations?!?! On one hand you want to take care of your dog/family member but at the same time is there a threshold amount that says, “we can’t justify this” ?!?

That’s a lot of money.

Doctor said it’s highly unlikely to be cancer. But it’s gotta be taken care of — can’t have it leaking anymore and potentially getting infected.


12/18/18 — update on bottom of page 3

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Copefree,

Does your local spca have a reduced price clinic ?

Local University School of Veterinary Medicine

Must be those ‘spencive Seattle Vets.

For a cyst removal, that is rediculous. No way I’d pay that.

Vet bills are the new scam - cancer treatments, chemo, all that crap.

I had to put down a 2 year old dog once, after she swallowed what the vet guessed was a whole sock. It was gonna be a $1500-$2000 surgery, with no even reasonable guarantees of survival/recovery. This was after $400 of care/treatment/assessment. That was a lot of money to me at the time, still is really. Only you can make that call for your family/situation.

It's a heart break situation for sure.

You love the dog and yet these Vets frequently look at you like you're a heartless villain if you balk at the cost.

I know a buddy whose wife dropped the credit card on 10K in surgeries and treatments for a rescue GSD. The dog died less than 2yrs later and they are still paying the debt off. When he told me the story, I thought his head was going to explode.

He only opened up about it b/c I was faced with a similar situation where the vets wanted 2k just to do some additional liver diagnostics/biopsy/etc on one of my shepherds. I declined the procedure b/c she was 8yrs old and I couldn't justify the cost. She was a great dog but ultimately she was still a dog and I couldn't see my way clear to spending 2k just to find out what's wrong and then another ???K to treat it.

I would look around, that sounds pretty high to me.

When I lived in the area selling medical equipement Washington State University had a top notch Vet school and teaching animal hospital. It might be worth a call although Pullman will be an all day round trip for you.

Check around. We had two TPLO surgeries on our dog for $4k total. She was 8 I think, a rescue so we’re not sure. Super glad we did.

We put it on a newly opened, just for this reason, rewards card at 0% for 16 months I think it was. We could pay but it was better to do it this way.

Tough decision, I know. Been there.

Anyway, best wishes and I can send some funds to help either way.

This is the very reason I have pet insurance on my dog. My last dog was diabetic & the medical supplies cost over $200 a month. That was an 11 yr. period. I did not have insurance. That put a heavy burden on me, but worth every penny. I decided to give myself some peace of mind & got insurance on my current dog. I researched which companies cover the things I believe would be most likely to happen for my specific dog & situation. Personally, I would not be able to forgive myself if I didn't do everything possible for my pet, no matter the cost.

Here’s what I know. I look into my dogs’ eyes and they tell me they would rather be put down than be a financial burden to me.

If the amount fits in your discretionary spending, go ahead and spend it. If it’s more, I would consider how long would your dog last out in nature with her condition. I don’t think, as dog owners, we’re obligated to extend our pets’ lives past healthy natural conditions.

I would get another opinion or two. The vet schools are a good thought but I would not be surprised if they aren't similarly priced as the going rate in the area. Their overhead is even higher than the private practice vets.

If that estimate is what it's going to take, you have a hard decision to make. Have been there and have had to put even younger dogs down with similar costs estimates so I really feel for you. Not easy.

One of the problems that pet insurance and the high cost of college education is creating is escalating prices of care just like the same business model for human care. With insurance footing the bill, the customer isn't paying so the sky's the limit. And the vets have college costs to recover so their overhead is high.

Wish you good luck, my friend.

A pet vet seems to have a tough career. One part of the job has to include an regular parade of pets needing to be put down. With that comes a regular parade of grieving owners. That has to give you a particular perspective, not sure how to live with that. Emergency responders, public safety folks, news people all face grisly situations and, in time, you come out the other side changed.

I don't know how that ties to pet health care costs but I don't see how it couldn't be some sort of factor.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
Vet bills are the new scam

No shit, huh?

Good thing they don't have an office to pay for, staff salaries to cover, equipment to buy, an education to pay off, a mortgage, a car loan, kids to put through school, etc....

Greedy bastards.

quote:

Originally posted by nighthawk:
I would look around, that sounds pretty high to me.

I’m going to see what I can do. Seems high to me too. But who knows ... might just be the going rate.

TPLO on my 6 year old Black mouth cur was done last week for $4K. We had cancelled pet insurance 3 mos. ago. Vet bills are expensive but we forgo some other luxuries.

My Dad was a Vet. Old school Vet. I was helping with surgeries, and was the xray tech for many years. Scooped a lot of poop too. We did not need the modern techniques at all. Dad never lost a patient. And the prices were very much different. There was one funny thing. Dad often got phone calls asking costs for different procedures. They always sounded like owners shopping. But it was obvious the other vets were comparing prices. Dad called them Gestapo.

Our two younger dogs, a Boston terrier/English bulldog mix named Zoey, and an English bulldog named Dozer have cost us over 10k in the last year due to surgeries they have needed.

They both developed cherry eye which is a disorder where the third eyelid pops out and bulges in the inner corner of the eye. Both eyes on both dogs. 3k each dog there. Zoey had a chronic regurgitation problem which was caused by a sliding hiatal hernia. The surgery to fix that problem was 4.2k. She was miserable and it absolutely had to be done....she was only a year old at the time of the surgery.

Then there was Roscoe, whom we spent over 2k in the last month of his life on X-rays, ultrasounds and meds to try to help him.

We put a ton of money on credit cards, but what else could we do? We don’t have kids, so these guys are our “kids”.

We would do it again if needed. The reward of having them with us is all the justification we need.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
Must be those ‘spencive Seattle Vets.

For a cyst removal, that is rediculous. No way I’d pay that.

Vet bills are the new scam - cancer treatments, chemo, all that crap.

My brother is a vet. He owns several clinics, and has been at it quite a few years now.

When he was hiring a new vet several years ago, a young lady, fresh from school and interviewing for her first job as a vet, balked at the pay. My brother offered her higher than other vets in the state. She said she couldn't pay her student loans for what she was offered. My brother acknowledged that, said he was offering her more than she could bring into the practice, which he did to attract vets.

Her bills for the student loans were over 350,000.

There seems to be a perception that a vet shouldn't be charging anything because after all, he only works on animals...even though he completed medical school like any doctor, even though the scope of what he must know and do exceeds that of most MD's, not withstanding any additional specialties.

The cost of what it takes to get there and stay there is not small. One does not go to the local doctor and expect a ten dollar cyst removal. A recent dental implant for me ran over three thousand, for a single tooth.

My daughter's cat just cost a thousand for tests, and we found nothing conclusive. Between blood tests and x-rays, it wasn't cheap, but it was the cost of having the animal seen, and I fully understood the charges. I went over them with the vet, and paid them. We discussed each test and as I was paying, I authorized each step of the way.

The original poster's vet has a small consultation fee and exam fee, and unable to proceed, referred the patient to another doctor who could do the work. The doctor examined the patient, and gave an estimate which I'm sure is considerably less than the cost to any person getting minor surgery.

I had a similar lump on my dogs leg. It was a cholla catus needle. The lump was the scar tissue forming around the needle. You see this quite a bit from fox tail grass also. it punctures the skin and works its way to a spot.

we watched it for 3 years, then it ballooned in size over a two month time frame. All the seattle vets wanted 2k or more and shit tons of testing.

I took the dog to our old vet in portland, who specialized in gun dogs. He did the surgery for 750.

Search around. This is not rocket science and they know it. Many vets have become predetory, preying on the feelings of owners.