19/11/2024
I wanted to bring up something important. Your pet being suddenly sick is very stressful. Rushing to the vet’s office, hoping it’s something simple and easily treatable, worrying about how much this may cost. I know these emotions are familiar to anyone who has had pets for some time.
When I first started breeding dogs I didn’t have pet insurance on any of my dogs and generally just recommended keeping a savings account for any unforeseen vet expenses to my puppy families as well. This has worked well for me for years because my dogs have generally been very healthy and we could afford a very occasional unexpected expense like needing a tooth pulled due to a dental fracture because we always kept some savings for emergencies.
Recently vet costs everywhere have been going up, as is everything else I suppose. More advanced treatments have also become available which is great to diagnose and treat conditions previously difficult to treat but this also comes with extra costs. A lot of locally owned veterinary practices have also gotten acquired by large corporations as local vets retired, this also increased costs. I know more and more people struggling to afford veterinary care for their pets as things can happen suddenly and unexpectedly.
A couple of months ago I was in a dog training class with Ysera and I noticed she was kind of low energy, which is really atypical for this usually very happy, bouncy girl. When we came home she continued being lethargic so I knew something was wrong. I checked her temperature and it was very high. Rushed her to the vet first thing in the morning, after running a bunch of tests with everything coming back normal, apart from elevated white blood cell count indicating an infection, we still had no idea what was wrong. She was sent home with antibiotics and I was told to take her to a specialist for more testing if she doesn’t get better quickly. Over the next few days we had 4 more vet visits, all together Ysera had X-Rays, multiple blood tests, ultrasound, urinalysis, multiple organs were examined with everything looking “normal” yet she was still clearly sick. On day 4 her skin broke out in a horrible rash and that’s when we finally got our diagnosis - post grooming furunculosis. She was groomed the day before symptoms onset and something she was groomed with was contaminated causing a very deep skin infection.
She has made a full recovery and is doing great now but it was a very stressful and expensive experience. We had to cancel many long made plans and extra expenses to cover those costs.
Things like that can happen suddenly to an otherwise healthy dog but sudden onset chronic conditions are even scarier as they will require ongoing treatment.
A year ago I got an accident only insurance plan for my dogs but after our recent experience as well as seeing many friends and other people in the dog communities I’m part of struggling with vet bills I’ll be upgrading their plans to illness and accident protection when we renew our insurance in a few months. I’m writing this post to recommend you do the same, whether you have one of our puppies, want to get one or have a puppy from another breeder please consider protecting them in case something happens because truly, you never know.
Here are some insurance providers me or someone I know use, I’m not affiliated with any of them in any way so please find whatever plan works best for your pet’s needs but I highly recommend getting a quote and signing up!
https://www.petsbest.com/
https://www.trupanion.com/
https://www.lemonade.com/
https://www.embracepetinsurance.com/
A picture of one of my daughters with one of our puppies to add something sweet to this otherwise serious post 😊
