LOS ANGELES — When a vet told Nancy Gates that her dog Arabella had heart problems, needed surgery and it would cost $500, she had no choice but to put her pet down.
“It was pretty straightforward because I had four young children to feed. The vet said surgery was my only option. I did not want my dog to suffer,” she said.
Gates made that decision 11 years ago but said nothing has changed. She still couldn’t afford high-priced health care for her current pets, an 11-year-old cat, Cocoa, and an 9-year-old golden retriever Sadie. And Gates isn’t alone.
Money is a consideration for the majority of people when dealing with the cost of health care for animals, according to an Associated Press-Petside.com poll conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs &Media.
While most pet owners, 62 percent, would likely get vet care if the bill was $500, the percentage drops below half when the cost hits $1,000. The number drops to 35 percent if the cost is $2,000 and to 22 percent if it reaches $5,000.
Only at the $500 level are dog owners (74 percent) more likely than cat owners (46 percent) to say they would likely seek treatment. In the higher price ranges, the two are about equally likely to seek vet care.
“Grief gets complicated when we can’t do everything we would have liked to do for our animal,” said veterinarian Jane Shaw, director of the Argus Institute in the College of Veterinary Medicine &Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo.
That’s especially true in hard economic times, when spending money you don’t have on an animal can have a lasting impact on children, the mortgage, grocery bills, heating bills.
“Euthanasia is always sad but when finances have to be considered, when you feel there is a possibility you didn’t or couldn’t do the right thing, you feel guilty,” Shaw said. “We are at a point where we are talking about basic life needs or survival needs.”
Terry Cornwell, 55, of Newport, Ore., has had to put down a couple of pets, but none was harder than a dog that was diagnosed with cancer. “My income decides a lot of my expenses,” she said.
About one in four people, or 27 percent, said pet insurance is a good way to save money on vet bills, though that’s five times the number who actually carry insurance on their pets.
Ninety-five percent of those polled said they didn’t have insurance.
When quality of life has diminished and there is severe pain and suffering, the time has come to start making decisions, Shaw said.
In the final hours, it helps some people to share one last special time with an animal — a trip through a fast food drive-thru for a hamburger, a bath, a dish of homemade ice cream — something familiar to the pet, she said.
Some will take a hair clipping or clay pawprint to help build a bridge and foster the grief process. Others will arrange for euthanasia to happen at home so the pet can be surrounded by every member of the family, including other animals, Shaw said.
But nothing will completely ease the ache, she said, because guilt is part of the cost of caring deeply.
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