Dog owners (in US) do you have pet insurance?
 

I have two medium/large (50-55 lbs) mix dogs. Brother and sister, they are a Shepard mix with some beagle, I really don't know.

They will be 2 in October and currently take them to a vet my mother-in-law works at, so we get a decent discount.

However, insurance for for when the unexpected happens, such as accidents. My friends dog has been getting chemotherapy and the bill is over $8k now.

Anyone have pet insurance, and if so, with who and how do you like it?

I don't; if Buddy needed chemo I would do the same thing for him that I would do for me . . . enjoy the rest of my life.

Same here, but worth $20-30/mo. to potentially cover costs?

I'd sell a kidney if my dogs needed it, but debating on pulling the trigger on one of these providers.

To me, insurance is a sucker's bet. :2 cents:

I'd just let the dog die or put it down if it got that sick. It's a fucking dog :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I love my dog, but I wouldn't be spending $8k for chemo, and putting him through all that.

Anyway, I have VPI -- but I never use it because it's a pain in the ass. You have to file yourself and they only pay half. So I guess its worth it for big stuff, but not for little things like basic yearly shots, etc.

I got insurance because I have a Lab, and while he was a neckbreaker when he was younger -- he's started to settle into that "old dog" phase.

Pet insurance? LOL.

My god goes to the vet for shots only. To date we've never had any problems. Must be about ten years now.

I have it, We use I think a company called petplan. Has saved us a ton.

Dogs get sick just like humans. I have insurance on the wife and kids, so only made sense to do the same for my dog. Insurance is one of those things that sucks paying for until you need it. I have had car insurance since I was 16 and have not had one car wreck ever. Just because of that does not mean I am stupid enough to stop having car insurance even it if was not the law.

My dog has had 2 issues that would have cost me $3k-4k but with the insurance only paid 10% of that and the insurance was i think $300 for the year. I am sure some would say they would let the dog die as I have, but my wife would have just taken the dog to get fixed anyhow so mine as well make it as cheap as possible. Plus last thing I want to explain to my kids is why a 2yr old died because daddy was to cheap to stop it.

Put insurance is a tough call. Most people I talk too say it isn't worth it. It's too hard to get your money back, they exclude so much from coverage. What I read is that you should set aside the money you would use for insurance plus a little more into a savings account and just save it until you need it for medical expense for your dog.

nope. my dog does not go to the vet & i don't get the *vaccines* for my dog either. he's 6+ years old now and healthy as can be, hasn't been to the vet since he was a few months old.

I don't, my girl and I went back and forth trying to figure out if it was worth it or not. The dog insurance that we looked at covered only a few specific things and it wasn't worth the money.

So, not licensed either?

I have Trupanion, and it's saved my ass twice already.

I think it depends on the breed really, and what you do with the dog.

Our dog is a working dog, GSD, so he is very active, prone to dangerous moments, etc.

We've taken him in twice for things and I can tell you Trupanion saved me money.

With them, it's a no questions asked 90% payout. I also have the hip dysplasia clause that I can drop once he's the age to where the vet can identify if he's going to have that or not. At about 1 year the vet can rule it out or say he has X% chance of having it. A hip dysplasia surgery would be about 12,000. I'd pay 1200. No questions asked.

So far they've saved me about 800.00. I've paid about 400.00 in premiums so far.

So I guess it all depends on your dog, likely hood of vet visits, etc.

Hope this helps.

E


** Disclaimer: Before the troll heard spends their whole day investigating my dogs insurance company for holes in their policy to prove me wrong on the Internet, I could give a shit if any one else's animals get insurance. Free information is what I'm providing here. Piss off with your dissection of my posts about my personal situation. And Go Fuck Yourself.

HAha. I haven't used that on here for a long time.
Have a great day folks, I'm out!

They have the wrong insurances then. There are good companies and bad ones for any vertical. Would you ever go to Kaiser? Me either. I have a Blue Cross PPO that costs me extra and I go to Cedars Sinai for everything minor/major, and to my PPO family doctor here at home. Just like anything else, you have to spend the time really digging into it. Most people don't do that.

:2 cents:

Not everybody lives in the city.

My family down in Fla. are all "country people"

Never take their dogs to vets or get them a "dog license". The dogs run around free in the pasture.

Guys like us living in big cities are the ones who have all the govt. regs for our pooches. :)

I don't here because I don't have pets but I did in the UK and more than a few times I was happy that I did. I had a pug and a spaniel and between the two the puppy stage had enough vet visits to be worth it alone.

nope. :)

It seems that my neice is involved in a start up that provides at home cancer treatments for people to give their pets.

I just got this today. Pretty fucking cool if it doesn't break the bank.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vetivax/

we have show dogs so kind of important to have some insurance. but it only covers basic treatment i didn't even think chemo was an option for pets to be honest.

some things you can do to avoid such things is keeping their diet in check. buy the more expensive foods that don't have bullshit fillers like corn and grains in it. The good thing is those foods are very calorie rich so you don't have to feed them as much of it so the costs aren't as bad as you think. Keeping their bodyweight down is extremely important, its your job to figure out how much they need, not theirs. Feeding them some greens every now and then seems to help as well. like broccoli stocks, don't have to make them salads ;)

We have a dog with cancer and he was given 3 months to live about 5 years ago and hes perfectly fine and happy today, because we have taken the steps to avoid feeding the tumours. Vet said he most likely got it from being neutered at too young an age which is known to raise the risks significantly.

diet is a different form of insurance ;)

We have a bunch of animals... currently six dogs and now six cats (again). Had four cats but just adopted two more stray kittens that we found on our property. We have insurance on many of our pets, but there are a couple that have pre-existing issues that we couldn't get insurance on.

We decided to get insurance on the others after dealing with a host of issues with our 10 year old Miniature Schnauzer and our 13 year old cat / mountain lion.

Our Schnauzer has had 40% of his stomach removed due to a tumor, is diabetic, has immune mediated poly-arthritis (IMPA), and has had cataracts removed in both eyes, but ended up losing vision in his left eye due to a detached retina. He takes an expensive medication for his (IMPA), about $200 a month, plus he must take medication for liver issues. We've spent almost $40,000 so far on all of his treatments, hospital visits, etc. He is one expensive ass dog.

Our cat mentioned above was a 22 pound mountain lion mix who only had one kidney due to an accident many years ago. About 6 months ago we found out he had lymphoma of the stomach. We started chemo right away, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. He ended up passing away a few weeks ago weighing less than 8 pounds. Total cost for him (including the kidney operation) was approaching $10,000.

Two of our other dogs have had cataracts removed (over $2500 per dog).

We've spent a fortune on our animals... we decided to get insurance just in case we have any future issues. We bought it from VPI Pet Insurance (http://www.petinsurance.com/). I certainly recommend it.

I read this post to Buddy and he wants to know if he can move in with you.

http://sphotos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphoto..._7298398_n.jpg

yes I do...

Don't ask my wife... she'll say yes. :)

I would put my dogs down just as I'd expect those close to me to pull the plug on me if I were that sick. I'm not going to live my life in a hospital bed or my own bed, nor would I expect my dogs to suffer through that.

I got a similar story...with slightly different specifics.

I have a cat. An old cat. Born in 1993...so I guess he's 20 years old now. When I moved to Vegas in 2008 I took him to the vet because his eyes were glazing over. I thought it was cataracts.

They did a bunch of tests and told me it was a brain tumor and he didn't even need to get any of his yearly shots because he wouldn't be alive long enough. So he hasn't been to the vet since 2008.

Well...he's still alive. Damn cat is like the Keith Richards of cats. lol

Last month I noticed something wrong with his left eye. I went to touch it and he freaked out.

I took him to the vet.
His eyeball had EXPLODED from the pressure of the brain tumor!!!

I had noticed that he had been kinda listless the month before and was barely eating. I figured it was getting close to his "time".

Well, the vet cleaned what was left of his eyeball out of the socket and sewed it shut. Took him back in last week and had the stitches removed.

I guess his eyeball blowing out relieved the pressure. He's been eating like a horse, purring, playing, and acting like his old self. (except he can't see, so he bumps into shit)

I don't have insurance for my little mix mutt but I was going to say the same things E did about making your decision based on breed and lifestyle of the dog. If you have a breed known for certain issues that become expensive like hip dysplasia it would be well worth it (check policy exclusions obviously). If your dog is active and has a lot of property to run around and explore vs sitting inside all day it would be a good investment imo. I would agree with Baddog on the chemo and never put an animal through that. But a dog at higher risk for breaks, snake bites, scrapes that become infectious or genetic issues is a good candidate for coverage.