If your pet needed costly surgery, how much would you be willing to spend before deciding to put the pet down instead?

Money isn’t the issue for me, it’d be the issue of life expectancy after the surgery, the risks of the surgery and if their quality of life isn’t disturbed.
I would get multiple credit cards and max them all out for my pets if it would save their life.

About 500 for my cat (I would spend more if I had it). She is getting pretty old now.

My sister paid over a thousand for her cat to get a c-section. Her water broke and no kittens came out.

My sisters husband joked “I could have taken care of this for a dollar.” He meant the cost of a bullet. Wrong thing to say to my sister. She made the craziest look on her face. And he looked frightened.

Depends on how old the pet is and what its chance of survival is.

Instead of spending money on surgery, I would save money on groceries by feasting on the surgical remains.

In many foriegn countries, pets are kept as a latent food supply. In Singapore, grilled pet lizard sandwiches are particularly delectable with mayo and barbecue sauce.

I dunno. I might be willing to spend $100 on the guinea pig, but my kids would spend a thousand. The price of love keeps going up.

I am still paying off student loans I took out to pay for Veterinary care for my black lab.
The dog passed away 11 years ago and each month I write a check without any remorse or second thoughts.

@johnpowell I like your sister’s attitude.

As an aside, discussions like this one are a great argument for pet health insurance.

I spent well over $10,000 on one of my dogs for vet bills over the course of two years; she ultimately ended up dying much too young of an aggressive fungal disorder that didn’t respond well to treatment. My dogs now have health insurance. At $300–500 a year, it’s cheap peace of mind.

There was a time where I would have not had an issue to spend a few thousand on my pet but as it is right in this now, I’d be able to justify about $1000.00 and then no more because there are others to consider. It would hurt really bad to deny him care, it bugs me not to have the choice for any more.

As much as I was able, and only if the surgery would yield a positive outcome.

I always say I would spend up to $1000, but then found myself paying $2500 to repair a hind leg on our newest addition to the canine crowd.

However, there is much more than cost to consider.

What is the age of the animal? A young animal who still has many years of life ahead may justify a larger cost. Our newest dog was only 12 months old. Her previous owner had allowed her to be injured when she was tiny and never repaired the injury. For that $2500 we could give her a rapid end to pain, make it possible for her to use all four legs, and grant her potentially another 14 or so years of happy life.

What is the quality of the animal’s life and what would it be if I spent the money? I had a wonderful cat develop kidney failure when she was only six years old. For $3000 I could have gotten her a kidney transplant. But then for the next ten years I would have to give her anti-rejection drugs daily and watch her carefully for any signs of infection. She was in great pain and hated to take pills, so I chose to end things for her.

How will the treatment make the animal feel, especially if there is a possibility that the treatment won’t work? Our Shar-Pei had an aggressive form of lymphoma. Chemo therapy might have cured her, but it was more likely that it would only have slowed the disease. The treatment itself would have made her feel terrible, nauseous and fatigued, so she wouldn’t have been able to enjoy being a dog. You can’t explain to her why you are doing something to her that makes her feel ill. Thus, it is better to end things while she still enjoys life a bit.

For me the most important thing is for my pets to enjoy their lives. If treatment will allow them to continue a painfree existence, where they can do what a cat or a dog naturally does with the pleasure they should feel in being alive, then I will spend the money.

However, if treatment may be more painful than the illness, or have no chance of granting pain-free living, or if the animal has lived a good. long, happy life, then I would choose to end that life comfortably, no matter how much emotional pain it causes me.

Over a period of 10 years, I spent thousands on medical treatment for my dog, but in the final analysis, it was a few hundred here, a few hundred there. I would have said no, thank you, if someone said 10 years ago, this will be the most expensive “free” dog you ever had.

I would spend any amount of money on my kitty cats. I lurve them. sniff

Any amount of money that we have, of course.

A shit load for either of my labs. Huckleberry (avatar) and his bro Finneghan. Including selling my Cessna or Triumph.