Proactivity for life time patient care

[HorseyVet]

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I'm budding this off another thread so the original stays on topic.

I know you probably know all about budgetting and costs for pets, but you can't always budget the big stuff. The "average" dog costs something like $400 if it's healthy every year, just for food and liscense. My last, oh, three or 4 dogs cost at least that much a month, between chemo, euth, bloodwork, chiropracting, special food, doggie alzhimers drugs, etc.
QUOTE]

I'm running into this myself. My geriatric dog has indeed become much much more expensive than he was as an adult.

Personally I am planing on creating a savings fund specifically for end of life care for my future pets. Probably not really enough for major or catastrophic surgery/injury, but enough to pad the added expenses of NSAIDs, joint supplements, bloodwork, etc.

I realize that by the time my next dog(s) get to that point I'll proabably be a vet and things will be somewhat cheaper, but still I think budgeting is always best.

I would like to, and plan, to set up some kind of guidelines for advising clients to do the same. For example, "plan to save this much per year for a cat," "an arthritic large dog costs this much per month," etc.

Does anyone know if models like this already exist and/or how they are recieved? I'm sure on needs to be tactful when discussing these matters. I don't want to have someone bring in a kitten for first shots, and freak them out about renal failure, but still I think the more info the cilent has the better.

The same goes for advising food choices....getting clients to pay for higher quality food will minimize the effects or occurances of some diseases in the future. Of course for some reason that extra 5-10 dollars a bag really is perceived as outlandish to some clients. I'm not sure if this is a failure of clients to realize that nutrition matters for pets too or that most Americans themselves have poor nutrition habits and understandings, so it's hard to expect them to do something different for their pet than what they are doing for themselves (see also anyone that's had to advise an obsese client the need for their obese dog to loose weight). It's probably a combination of issues.

Anyway, ideas? Comments?

 

[lazyjayn]

I think a lot of that stuff is patient or owner education, which one of my vet frineds thinks (and I rather agree with him) is the most important part of the job. If you can educate them about, say, the money they save by giving the dog better food (no allergy rxn, so no ear infection, so no visit/ drugs/ surgery for hematoma in ear from flapping ears), or having a pamphlet in the "new pet" baggie that most vets give out, on lifetime costs, averages, and stuff like that.

Or having information on *good* pet health insurance.

You might not have as much to do with a healthy animal, and you'd probably not make as much off of that one person, but hopefully that person would then refer people they know who have pets. And you can then try to educate them.

Not that it usually helps- some people just refuse to learn.

But yeah, I think the best way is to have info in a well-puppy (kitten, addopted dog/ ferret/ whatever) kit. I know a bunch of rescues won't let you addopt unless you have a realistic idea of how much your dog will cost.

But yeah, owner education- the main part of the job. Well, that and getting peed on.