top of page
All the things I wish I knew before I got my first ever puppy!
Insurance reassurance - the harsh reality of vet bills: Image
I didn't feel overly reassured when £611 went out of my bank account for insurance... until I needed it.
So I covered this briefly in my pre puppy shopping list, but I can't emphasise enough how important insurance is, and even more so now I've learnt some of the laws regarding dogs.
Firstly there is the obvious, if your dog is ill, are you prepared and/or able to foot the bill. My friend's dog ate a potato whole and ended up needing a £4,000 operation to get it out! The PDSA Paw Report 2015 estimates that over the course of a lifetime, the average sized dog can cost between £16,000 to £31,000- depending on breed- and that's not taking into account excessive vet fees.
Having done some research, vet prices vary up to 100% across the country, and the people who conducted the research said it could vary even more as over half the vets contacted flat out refused to reveal their prices! I found the below comparison on the Guardian, and it shows the variation of prices across the country.
Vets are not regulated price wise, so they are free to choose to charge whatever they want. I am very fortunate that my local vet- who I used many moons ago for my pet rabbit, is a private practice and very fairly priced, and more importantly they do a really good job. Another vet surgery down the road has a mixed bag of reviews, but building wise they’re in a state of the art building- and as such seem to charge state of the art seriously inflated prices.
A lot of people seem to be under the impression that if you buy your puppy from a reputable breeder, that they won’t have any health issues- or at least not as a puppy. I’ve seen so many posts online of people asking about something wrong with their puppy, but then saying ‘oh well it can’t be health related because he/she was from a reputable breeder and the parent’s were health checked!’. THEY ARE NOT IMMUNE FROM ILLNESS.
Just like humans, you could take 2 of the healthiest people in the world and have a baby with a multitude of health issues, or you could have the 2 unhealthiest parents in the world and have a perfectly healthy baby. Also, asides from the genetics, puppy’s are extremely vulnerable to the outside world, they can pick up parasites, eat something funny or god forbid pick up something terrible like parvo virus.
Not to mention, taking illness aside, puppy’s are ridiculously clumsy creatures, and if your dog broke his leg and got a complex fracture, it could cost anywhere between £4-6k to fix it! Basically don’t assume that you’re puppy won’t need insurance!
So far poor little Cooper hasn't had the best of luck. At 10 weeks he got a parasite, at 11 weeks he got cystitis, at 19 weeks he licked suspected cannabis in the park and at 22 weeks he got conjunctivitis! Fortunately none of them resulted in massive vet bills- the most was when he collapsed after the cannabis in the park and it was around the £220 mark.
Although none of them were particularly big claims and most of them under my £99 excess, especially with the emergency visit for the cannabis. I had to sign off for them to do up to £411 in treatment and I was warned that if he didn't improve it could cost a whole lot more... thankfully he did but it was a close call!
Insurance reassurance - the harsh reality of vet bills: Sports Articles
bottom of page