re: How much would you spend on your pet before you draw the line?

Save the dog! Drop the toddlers off at a fire station.......

Literally just went through this over the last 10 days. My golden eats anything and everything, which apparently included almost half of a bath towel. Same deal, vomiting and wouldn’t eat, took her in and it was lodged in her intestines. Lucky for me where I live the vet prices aren’t as crazy, but it was still $2500-3000. Tough pill to swallow, and I did think twice. She’s on constant supervision or in her baren kennel now.

Well you’re obviously wasting money on beer. How much money are you spending on vehicles?

Now you’re planning on generating more bills by committing to pet insurance. Do you have more of a money management problem or a pet problem?

My current lab is 8 years old. I would probably draw the line at around $2k. She is as good a dog as you could want and the best duck dog I have ever owned.

MY wife and kid's pets? I wouldn't spend more than a couple of hundred. They, on the other hand, would have NO limit on how much I would spend LOL....and they always win.

We have a cat that took up with us about 10 years ago. I made the mistake of feeding the damned thing some old dry cat food I had bought for making chum and he thought he and I were partners. He has never left. About a year after he took up with us he got very sick....was suffering from a common ailment that male cats suffer from that makes it nearly impossible for them to piss. Took him to the vet, surgery estimate was $8k and the outcome was doubtful. We told them to put him down but they said they could catheterize him for a short while and sometimes it would keep them alive and healthy for a couple of years. It cost us about $200 I think and it worked for about 3 months when he got sick again. The vet told us it probably wouldn't work a second time and it was either surgery or euthanasia. We decided to put him down and went to tell our kids.....never got it out of our mouth, they saw it in our eyes and started crying and asking us to do what ever we could. The vet was with us. She said she could try the catheter again and make him comfortable for a few days. She did this and in the meantime a retired vet from Albuquerque contacted us and told us he would train our vet to do the surgery, over a conference call, for $1500. This was not a surgery that many vets had ever done, it was basically a sex change operation for a cat. We agreed and our vet did the surgery with the retired vet over a conference call and 8? years later that cat is laid up on my wife's home office window sill living large. He was worth the $8K but well worth the $1500....a damned cat. I would have never believed it when the damned thing took up with us....

I hope the surgery went well and you and your dog are doing okay.

Dogs that have a compulsion to eat things they shouldn't (pica) MAY grow out of it but most of them don't and each subsequent surgery comes with increased risks and potential issues to their GI tract.

Going forward I would recommend you make plans for preventing this whether it be a crate, basket muzzle when she is not supervised, doggie day care, etc but dogs are smart and determined especially the ones with this compulsion.

Not an easy way to live especially if you have kids in the house. I feel for you.

The dog will just move on to eating underwear, washcloths, etc

I aint never had a dog that ate anything besides scraps and dog food. Tore, shred, mauled, minced, ripped, sheared yes, but actually ate, no. Tough call and I have been there before. One of my labs got hit one Saturday afternoon. The vet office was closed, and I called my vet at home. His wife answered and said he was cutting hay, and she would call him on his cell. He called me a few minutes later and told me to meet him at the clinic. Two hours later and almost a hundred stitches, she was patched up with me being the head nurse. It was when I was just getting on my feet and my vet knew it and told me I could pay it out over the next year. Dog died a few months later from hemorrhage.

Cat swallowed a dryer sheet once and the vet said $900 to remove it or the cat was going to die.

RIP Blackie

We spent $7,500 on our dog last year over two surgeries.

I told my wife that, if anything else happened, we would say our goodbyes.

Thankfully, the surgeries fixed the issue.