The other day, I was talking to a volunteer veterinarian who worked for a nonprofit group which helped rescue animals, and lower income bracket pet owners. If you've ever had to take your dog into a veterinarian, you know how much that can cost. Many folks that don't have a lot of money cannot afford pet insurance therefore they join nonprofit groups which provide pet care, where the owner does most of the work. Many of these nonprofit organizations also offer subscription-like guarantees where people pay monthly, and bring their pet in as needed.
Now then, the individual I was talking to told me that people believe that their pet insurance and services are cheaper than a normal veterinarian clinic. He said this because he had noted that the prices for the local regular clinics are about the same for surgery, and other types of pet services. It turns out their pet insurance costs and subscription like premiums are very similar to outside vendors that offer pet insurance through local veterinarian pet clinic dealers. In other words, just because a group says it is nonprofit does not necessarily mean you are getting the best deal for the pet services or the pet insurance their offering.
Normally, you would think that this doesn't make sense because a nonprofit group doesn't have to pay huge amounts of money, and there is no owner taking the profit. The reality is that for-profit veterinarians are very efficient because they have to be - because they are running a business. Therefore they can do a higher volume with a number of people they have on their staff, and they can do the services more efficiently, and sometimes with more knowledge. The very best veterinarians end up working for themselves, most of them do not work in nonprofit organizations, although some do, so it's not fair to make a blanket statement either.
It's too bad that so many people find out the cost to save their animal is too high and realize they can't afford it, and therefore end up putting their animal down, or walking away. The gentleman told me some horror stories where dogs, cats, or other pets had been injured and had a treatable or fixable issue that could have been solved through surgery. However the owner did not have the money, or a credit card balance allowing them to do those services, therefore they took another option, putting the animal to sleep, also known as putting the animal down. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it, and do what makes sense for you and your pet.
Lance Winslow used to run 10-miles a day with his dog when he was younger.
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