My parents saved up for years to get a really nice leather furniture set for the living room and were about to pull the trigger on it when the dog started having seizures.

They took the dog to the vet, and it stayed overnight and kept getting worse. In the meantime, my Mom still had to go to work, and when she got the call that Skippy needed to go to a canine neurologist near her office, she ended up calling my aunt (teacher who was home for the summer) and asked her if she could drive the dog from the vet by the house to the neurologist's office near my Mom's work as a favor.

Turns out dog neurologists are really expensive, but they'd just moved a bunch of money into their spending account to buy furniture so were able to cover it. And now my Aunt thinks my parents can casually drop 10 grand without having to call the bank first. The couch had to wait a few more years.

Skippy wasn't expected to live, but she powered through. That was in 2015, and she's still around. She has Addison's disease and has to have monthly steroid injections on top of daily steroid pills, and stress and separation anxiety are still dangerous for her, but she's a trooper. She's the biggest Chihuahua you'll ever meet due to the steroids, but it's all muscle.

Vet prices are absolutely absurd these days. It’s fucking bullshit that they are exploiting people like this. If your response is, “just buy pet insurance”, you are part of the problem. Pet insurance should NEVER have become a thing.

I had a dog who started throwing up after every meal. The vet initially thought it was pancreatitis, so put her on meds and sent her home. Nothing improved so we took her back and they decided to open her up. They found two athletic headbands and a sock in her digestive tract.

One of my dogs has insurance because he eats things that aren’t food and I’m very worried about him.

i love my dogs and cat and tell them each they have a 1000 deductible. after that it’s the farm. i think the dogs get it. i know the cat is plotting something.

Back in 2018 when vet cost was much lower, we had a 120€ vet bill because our 3 month old dog refused to walk. Turned out she had a mosquito bite on her belly near the left hind leg and she was just being dramatic.

I've held my dog in my lap while my partner drove us to the 24h vet. My job was to hold the thread sticking out of my pup's mouth so he didn't swallow more of it. "How long is a piece of string?" indeed.

Vet induced vomiting. Pup was fine. String was plenty long.

Mine was born with weird knees due to her breed, and needed invasive surgery on both hind legs to fix her ACLs. $6,500 later… she is a happy doggo that can run and jump.

12/10, would do again.

My wife's favorite cat has pica. We learned this when she needed emergency surgery to remove a bowel obstruction. For the low price of 6500€ (about $7⁴00 USD), we received a cured kitty and a tangled mass of 38 elastic hair ties. That's only about 170€ per hair tie!

I had named the cat - Eris. This was inadvertantly my fault.

My cat would like a word. She ate an entire KFC drumstick, bones included. 12 hours at Kitty ER, and $1200.

My cat decided to eat a small dried decorative starfish, it got stuck in the little idiot's throat last year. That was a very expensive emergency vet visit.

It was a corncob, but yes.

Sisters dog ate compost and got ill on Christmas day. We were at a beach holiday house and had to drive 1.5 hrs to the nearest vet. That was not a cheap day for them 😅

"You're the ones who bred us to be dumb!"

Pet insurance is a better deal if you get it on a new healthy baby animal with no preexisting conditions, so they'll cover more of what happens later. Like our kitten, 30 hair ties in stomach, $4500 endoscopy, covered. But our older rescue we knew we'd just have to pay for getting all her teeth out at once and to treat her various other ailments that were already apparent.

Insure your pets.

This is my dog. He’s like 12 and he still does this shit. The last one was woodchips and it was like 4500$ I had a panic attack and full on meltdown in the vets office

Dude, I did this as a kid.

Mine just slipped on some ice and tore his cruciate ligament requiring VERY costly surgery.

Nope, my last dog just loved sticking her head through cat doors and pulling it back too fast and giving herself 4 separate ear hematomas. What an idiot. I'd give so much to have another day with that idiot though...

Two family dogs growing up. Smol Westie had no issues besides old dog health stuff near the end. Second was Golden Retriever. Got smoked by a porcupine he bothered, but didn't want to end his run with mom in the early morning dark, so only noticed when he ran into the room before I went to school and came over to me for pets. Besides that vet bill, best dog ever.

After moving out I became a cat guy but my parents still have one dog at a time. They started buying Poodles and the first one wasn't very bright. Kept eating random crap on the ground. Eventually he ate some abandoned piece of clothing in a park and managed to damage his throat even after surgery to the point he ate blender meat soup until he died a few years later because not being able to swallow solids didn't stop him from trying. I think a stray tennis ball did him in after he tore off his muzzle to eat it in a dog park. Truly a dog of all time. I remember my dad saying it was expensive enough to save dumbo's life that he was on the fence about it but mom convinced him lol.

I love pets. This is why I'll have no more new pets. The bills just are too much.

On the lower end of the scale, but last month we spent £150 on a trip to the vet because my kid left a packet of Dreamies on the side in the kitchen and Milocat can't be trusted to not eat the whole fucking thing.

It would have been more, but we get two consultations a year included in the monthly pet plan. So that's something, I guess...

If you live in the US, consider buying pet insurance for these situations. Private Equity has ruined the veterinarian industry.