Caring for a pet has a cost. The obvious cost is its nutrition, but its health costs must be accounted for as well in the decision to acquire a pet. No matter if you pay a lot for the pet or get it for free, now you have full responsibility for this life. It lives in your captivity, so it's your responsibility to ensure it's being cared for. This is not nature, it can't just live on its own and take care of itself as it would do in nature. It's essentially your prisoner, even if it's rare to see anybody understand that, so you need to provide to its needs. Including health needs. And that incurs a cost. Not _if_ it's needed, it's _when_ it's needed. If you can't "swing" that, then your decision to own a pet was an unbelievably irresponsible one.
The hate shouldn't go towards the vet charging that money for treatment, but towards this irresponsible pet-owner-who-shouldn't-be-one. It's irresponsible mainly towards the pet, but even towards the vet, as the original article demonstrates quite well.
Perhaps it's downvoted because its facile and ill considered. Its locked into a tiny figure because the parent poster threw it out but in actuality vet emergencies are now mostly $1000-$2500 which exceeds what 57% of households can afford and pets can live 20 years.
Ordinary responsible people are going to find themselves deciding what care they can provide for their pet both because of financial challenges personal and societal that weren't evident when they got the pet and because its getting expensive as fuck.
Caring for a pet has a cost. The obvious cost is its nutrition, but its health costs must be accounted for as well in the decision to acquire a pet. No matter if you pay a lot for the pet or get it for free, now you have full responsibility for this life. It lives in your captivity, so it's your responsibility to ensure it's being cared for. This is not nature, it can't just live on its own and take care of itself as it would do in nature. It's essentially your prisoner, even if it's rare to see anybody understand that, so you need to provide to its needs. Including health needs. And that incurs a cost. Not _if_ it's needed, it's _when_ it's needed. If you can't "swing" that, then your decision to own a pet was an unbelievably irresponsible one.
The hate shouldn't go towards the vet charging that money for treatment, but towards this irresponsible pet-owner-who-shouldn't-be-one. It's irresponsible mainly towards the pet, but even towards the vet, as the original article demonstrates quite well.