Mega-bucks! . . .

We do love animals, but I'll tell you what . . . if we had no animals at all we'd probably have TWICE as much money as we do now!   Good grief!  

The LSU equine vet came out about two weeks back to handle Arthur's abscessed hoof - plenty of cost for that. Then one of our cats, Abigail, reached a point a couple weeks ago where she could no longer walk at all.  She spent a few days at the vet but they couldn't get her back able to walk and she would have had to go over to the LSU vet school for more exams and an MRI that would have costed $1200 or more! But given the fact that we had had her for 15 or 16 years we decided to have her euthanized since she was already really old and even if we spent those mega-bucks they had no idea whether that could be effective.  And if she couldn't move she would lay there and her blanket would be full of piss and she sure couldn't be at all comfortable!   Better to end.

Then  Mark took Gigi over to LSU this morning to be spayed. When I checked in with them earlier they told me that the cost would be $300 to have her spayed.  Fine.  But then they called me this morning after she got there to see if they could also fasten her stomach in place so that it couldn't ultimately get turned over, at which point she would have had to have major surgery.  They said that the stomach attachment could be done with laparoscopic surgery and that the spay could also be done that way instead of a complete abdominal surgery.  When they spay laparoscopically, the uterus wouldn't be removed but that would be okay.  She'll still be completely spayed.  So that additional stomach attachment added $100, and although the cost of the spay actually IS $300, the total is going to be $600 with additional meds, etc. as well!  Good grief!   Sure glad I'm still working for another couple weeks anyway!  Geees!  

I'm thinking that down the line we will have ONLY the current animals.  And as they each go eventually, well -- we'll just have fewer.  No more new ones.  Well, no doubt there will always be at least ONE dog anyway.  But certainly no new one any time soon!