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Vet charges being obscene

DonalB1

Hi all,

Just a quick one...does anyone have any knowledge on the following (is it the norm?)

Recently our family dog passed away. He had a few issues and the vet thought it was best to put him to sleep. It was a shock to us all at the time but we didn't want the animal suffering so agreed if it was for the best.

When bringing our dog home to be buried the receptionist told us that we had an outstanding bill of 500 euro (250 for the bloods and 250 to put put to sleep). I can understand the bloods, but over the course of the animals lifetime we spent over 12,000 euro in that particular vet, between check ups, operations, food and medicine.

I'm actually appalled and embarrassed for them. To actually charge for that.

I run a business myself and I know everyone has overheads and staff to pay but that's insane

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AulWan

Always Tired wrote: »

That's an absolute gouge job, euthanasia shouldnt be anywhere near that. And did someone say they paid 500.00 for a cat to be PTS?

That was me. I can't remember the final breakdown of the bill as there were two vets involved. My usual vet won't do euthanaisa at home, so she recommended a colleague who would come out and put the cat to sleep in my house. Some of that final bill may have been for treatment before the decision to pts was made. I do know I paid a significant extra amount for a single cremation and for the ashes to be returned to me and I also had to pay in advance.

To be honest, at the time I felt it was worth the money purely for the comfort it gave my daughter to say goodbye to her pet that way. We had the cat since she was a baby, the cat was 19 years old when pts.

When my dog's time comes, I would do it again.

Always Tired

CelticRambler wrote: »

You know nothing about the veterinary profession. :mad:

Vets in this part of the world bill in Euros (or GBP). Don't assume that American values in respect of animal welfare apply to the same extent in Europe.

I admit the oil change bit was a bit of an exaggeration okay, but I worked in several vets, plus a shelter that worked with vets and have yet to see one shed a tear over a clients dog being PTS. And btw in the shelter I did euth myself, and there is a good reason you dont get too emotional over it - it is generally a release from pain for the animal and the best thing. Sometimes it is upsetting, sure. But that is not in any way the reason that the procedure is so expensive from some vets. That would be greed and taking advantage of grieving people making it easy to get them to pay.

As for the snarky dollars to euros bit, if you read the post I said that amount was what we would get as a donation to our shelter for doing euth for someone who couldn't or didn't want to pay the vet fees. So you got that totally wrong, obvs due to a chip on your shoulder about Americans

Always Tired

AulWan wrote: »

That was me. I can't remember the final breakdown of the bill as there were two vets involved. My usual vet won't do euthanaisa at home, so she recommended a colleague who would come out and put the cat to sleep in my house. Some of that final bill may have been for treatment before the decision to pts was made. I do know I paid a significant extra amount for a single cremation and for the ashes to be returned to me and I also had to pay in advance.

To be honest, at the time I felt it was worth the money purely for the comfort it gave my daughter to say goodbye to her pet that way. We had the cat since she was a baby, the cat was 19 years old when pts.

When my dog's time comes, I would do it again.

Not criticizing your decision to pay it in any way. I just think vets should ease up on the price gouging at the final stage when clients have already usually paid a lot and are enduring such a sad event.

Especially since it can lead to people who don't have the money or just dont want to spend it, taking matters into their own hands. Which is why at our shelter we never turned anyone away even though it really should not be our job to put down pets that have owners, we were put into that position though because vets charge so much for it.

I absolutely dread when the time comes for my girl and would have it at home as well, she gets very scared in strange places and I wouldn't want her to be be frightened in her final moments. But I also think that my desire for her to be able to be PTS at home shouldn't be taken advantage of and lead to extortionate charging.

CelticRambler

Always Tired wrote: »

And btw in the shelter I did euth myself

It's really not a good idea to be admitting to performing an illegal act on a public forum, especially when implicating your employers at the same time.

Unless, of course, you're referring to something you did in a different country, on a different continent, where the attitude to life (human included) is entirely different. In which case my earlier comment still stands.