Why aren't cats more popular

>> Vets lose money when they do low cost spays.

Maybe but they sure make up for it in other ways, we have a CKD cat who needs SubQ fluids, a bag of fluid used to be $10 then 2 weeks later it was $15 and has increased since then.

Don't get me started about "prescription only" food, that's a another price gouge

Oh, low wing and lots of cats.
 
Scrabo said:
>> Vets lose money when they do low cost spays.

Maybe but they sure make up for it in other ways, we have a CKD cat who needs SubQ fluids, a bag of fluid used to be $10 then 2 weeks later it was $15 and has increased since then.

Don't get me started about "prescription only" food, that's a another price gouge

Oh, low wing and lots of cats.
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In the past year and a half, the wholesale cost of fluids have gone up 65%, then 40% then 55%. If your cost only went up from $10 to $15 then your vet ate the rest of the cost increase, like we did, because we couldn't bear to charge clients that much.

And prescription foods are among the lowest markup products in a vet hospital. That money almost all goes straight to the manufacturer. But if used correctly and as necessary, it is much cheaper than surgical or other medical procedures, and often has better success at preventing problems. But you can't see problems that have been prevented. The hassle of dealing with prescription foods, and the complaints they generate make it a nightmare to deal with. But many of the foods are necessary so we dealt with it. Including the complainers.

edit to add: But you are right. When vets lose money in one area, they make it up in another area, otherwise, they go out of business. The more that people order their prescriptions from Pet Med Express, the more Vets mark their other services up to recoup lost revenue. What else would you have them do?
 
>> What else would you have them do?

Perhaps be more competitive with their pricing. An IV line is $5 from the vet or $2 online... Same brand etc.

I would prefer to support local businesses but like when they start jacking up prices, no wonder people move to online shopping, even if it means waiting 2 or 3 days to get it.

Don't start me on emergency clinics !!!
 
Scrabo said:
>> What else would you have them do?

Perhaps be more competitive with their pricing. An IV line is $5 from the vet or $2 online... Same brand etc.

I would prefer to support local businesses but like when they start jacking up prices, no wonder people move to online shopping, even if it means waiting 2 or 3 days to get it.

Don't start me on emergency clinics !!!
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This is why I closed my business and retired.

There is no way in hell a fully equipped hospital with a well trained staff can compete in price with on-line re-sellers. Rather than complaining, just go ahead and order that IV line off the internet. But then next, you will be complaining because the vet jacked up some other price so that he can pay his staff and keep emergency supplies in stock.

Perhaps people can start ordering surgical procedure kits over the internet and doing their own surgery and we won't need vets any more. After all, we are only talking about stupid fungible animals that can't feel pain now, aren't we?
 
Our nonprofit clinic charges $64/spay, $44/neuter. We get grants to subsidize owners who can't afford even those.
 

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JOhnH said:
After all, we are only talking about stupid fungible animals that can't feel pain now, aren't we?
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Isn't that the real truth though? Goes for humanity as well. None of us is more special than the other. The reality is we are all fungible, and death is inevitable regardless. I truly don't think 'suffering' exists outside of primates. One can see the signs in other primates, but I don't see it in dogs, cats, horses.... However that does not say they do not feel pain, they most certainly do, including emotional pain. They don't have the capacity to do anything about it though, so they don't have the capacity to suffer as an impetus to create change. Suffering for them would be meaningless, for us it's meaningful to our evolution. Most mammals know four things, love, fear, hunger, and pain. No I don't believe in leaving an animal in pain, but there are plenty of cats and dogs in shelters that are perfectly healthy that will be euthanized in a shelter that would also like a home and a chance. In the end we all die, the only question is how many did we help on the way. I would never put a cat through chemo or invasive cancer surgery. Broken bones, yes, major disease, no, "good night sweet kitty..."
 
JOhnH said:
This is why I closed my business and retired.

There is no way in hell a fully equipped hospital with a well trained staff can compete in price with on-line re-sellers. Rather than complaining, just go ahead and order that IV line off the internet. But then next, you will be complaining because the vet jacked up some other price so that he can pay his staff and keep emergency supplies in stock.

Perhaps people can start ordering surgical procedure kits over the internet and doing their own surgery and we won't need vets any more. After all, we are only talking about stupid fungible animals that can't feel pain now, aren't we?
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I don't buy the idea that 'poor' vets rely on sales of supplied etc, the cost of procedures is where you make the money, we have all the cats insured so we don't have to worry if we can afford that surgery or not, not everyone can do that.

You are pricing yourselves out of business, people can't drop $$$$ on a pet when they have to put food on the table. Agree, part of being a responsible pet owner is to insure you can afford it, but most people given the choice between a $5000 vet bill or having to tell poor Johnny that Fido has gone "upstate" - choose the upstate option.

Sorry I have never met a poor vet, especially here in AZ, one of the MOST expensive states for vet care.

$75 to weigh and stick a thermometer up a cats rear or a $200 single X-ray does sound excessive.
 
> "In the end we all die, the only question is how many did we help on the way."

Well said. To keep myself on the sane side of the edge I mostly limit myself to those that cross my path.

************

There doesn't seem to be any shortage of vets in SoCal, despite internet sourcing. Thankfully there are a lot of them who also do pro bono work and who do low cost spay/neuter. It just takes a bit of looking. We have a wonderful resource (among many) in San Diego County called the Neuter Scooter, a mobile vet lab that stations itself in low income areas and conducts numerous clinics each month.

http://www.snap-sandiego.org/

As for "Do it yourself" surgical kits I think that's an excellent idea. It's just a mechanical procedure that can be taught and necessary tools bought (online of course). Some hands-on instruction from someone who knows what they're doing, in a sterile environment with sterile tools. Why not? The medical/dental/vet cabals in this country and their hocus pocus crap to justify ridiculous pricing is annoying. When it comes to spay/neuter over-the-top prices and animal mutilation, it's criminal . . . at least in my estimation. De-clawing actually is against the law in Europe and Canada and perhaps other Commonwealth countries.

Edit:

I'm showing my ignorance here. Looking into it I see de-clawing is banned in Los Angeles and several other California cities. New York is on the verge of banning it statewide. Looking on the internet I see it's banned in the following countries:

England
Scotland
Wales
Italy
Austria
Switzerland
Norway
Sweden
Ireland
Denmark
Finland
Slovenia
Brazil
Australia
New Zealand
Serbia
Montenegro
Macedonia
Slovenia
France
Germany
Bosnia
Malta
Netherlands
Northern Ireland
Portugal
Belgium
Israel

At the website below is more information on the subject. I didn't realize it was such a widely known issue. My personal experience with it has been limited to watching one of my mom's three cats that I inherited when she died. Tawny had been de-clawed by my demented mom to prevent damage to a couple couches. "What else could I do?" my mom said when I called her on doing such a cruel and stupid thing. Tawny now walks in a hunched-up way, clearly it pains her to walk thanks to her feet being mutilated. Tawny was my mom's favorite and much-loved cat. The couches are now in a garage slowly working their way to a thrift store or the dump.

http://www.pawproject.org/legislation/
 
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Cats are loathsome, sneaky, disgusting creatures, fit only as something for dogs to chase. I have never found dog tracks on my car. My neighbor's dog doesn't climb my fence and crap in my flower beds. I wonder if they really do taste like chicken.
Paul
Salome, AZ
 
Scrabo said:
I don't buy the idea that 'poor' vets rely on sales of supplied etc, the cost of procedures is where you make the money, we have all the cats insured so we don't have to worry if we can afford that surgery or not, not everyone can do that.

You are pricing yourselves out of business, people can't drop $$$$ on a pet when they have to put food on the table. Agree, part of being a responsible pet owner is to insure you can afford it, but most people given the choice between a $5000 vet bill or having to tell poor Johnny that Fido has gone "upstate" - choose the upstate option.

Sorry I have never met a poor vet, especially here in AZ, one of the MOST expensive states for vet care.

$75 to weigh and stick a thermometer up a cats rear or a $200 single X-ray does sound excessive.
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$90 last week for a check up, 2 vaccines, heart worm test, and a nail trim for my dog. I think that is pretty reasonable.
 
I just realized I took a kitten to our vet. He had just started a new guy. A couple years ago, about 2 yrs after that cat died, I took a new cat to that same "new guy" who retired shortly afterward. That first cat lived a long time.
 
LDJones said:
Because they poop in a box they walk through, then jump up on your kitchen counter and walk around. Plus, if you ever tear up carpet in a house that's had cats you'll find they've marked their territory all around the perimeter of the rooms. It's nasty....but cat owners are clueless about it.

We had to treat the floors before recarpeting.
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Ill be honest, I own 2 cats and recently a dog for the past 9 years. ALL animals are nasty! ALL! My cats can come and go to the outside world and rarely use the box because they would rather go outside. When we had our dog she would eat the poop as it came out of the cat then come running trying to lick you. NASTY!

We bought our house from a dog owner. The second after closing I ripped up the carpet to put wood floors down. The carpet in spots was soaked with **** and not cat ****. It was a smaller dog, you know the kind that get excited and start ****ing. Did I mention this was a dog. Our dog was mostly an outside dog but when she came in she could stink up the house. We have some good friends who own nothing but dogs, and boy can you smell them before you even walk through the door. But they are nose blind to it. Cats themselves rarely stink thank goodness. haha Now I did say rarely.

Now I like both but I prefer cats. I can leave for a few days without worry. Not when we had the dog. But I liked the dog because she was a watch dog.

Im a low wing guy and own cats.
 
High wing with a cat. I believe I mentioned why earlier in the thread with a note that my cat is basically a dog. He cries for days when I leave on travel, too. I'm told he also continuously searches for me at night when I'm not home.
 
Highwing amphib, dog.
 
My floors are mostly tiled. In a couple of years it will be fully tiled. Tired of vacuuming fur out of the carpet from a shedding dog and cat.

Way off topic. Dog great for companion cat not so much.
 
Some cats make perfect companion pets, others not quite so much. Cats have a wider range of personalities than dogs.
 
because unlike dogs, cats are emotionally detached. they act like they don't really care
 
signtwist said:
because unlike dogs, cats are emotionally detached. they act like they don't really care
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Myth.

I had major surgery and was bedridden. My feline nurse watched over me like a hawk, stayed by my side, and was almost never off duty.

We had a dog and a cat. When we came home from work, the cat was always there to greet us. The dog was never there.
 
weilke said:
Do you run a business ?
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I did run a business starting with 2 employees and sold it when I had 60 employees and currently run a smaller operation in a different field.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Myth.

I had major surgery and was bedridden. My feline nurse watched over me like a hawk, stayed by my side, and was almost never off duty.

We had a dog and a cat. When we came home from work, the cat was always there to greet us. The dog was never there.
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When my step father was fading from Alzheimer's and other problems a stray cat came by and took up residence in his lap. Toward the end all he remember was Clara, not even my mom. After he passed we took her home. Best cat ever.
 
ejensen said:
When my step father was fading from Alzheimer's and other problems a stray cat came by and took up residence in his lap. Toward the end all he remember was Clara, not even my mom. After he passed we took her home. Best cat ever.
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Pretty much all mammals, heck, even birds and mammals, are inter species social when the competition for food is taken out of the equation. We all connect on the quantum level.
 
Cats are only loyal to the closest food provider. But I still love them - great scorpion detectors.
 
> "It was so strange that she didn't run. She walked around the front, and then to the right side and that's when we saw two leopard cubs. They were on the right side of the road and as we drove up we had separated them from their mother and she was nonchalantly trying to get back to them without making it too obvious. They were the size of domestic cats with beautiful blue eyes, wide, just staring at us. She slowly walked up to them, while looking at us, then they took off. Amazing!"

What a wonderful account. South Africa is such an incredible place for things like this. May it stay that way forever.
 
Cats are great. Loved them since a child. Love how they retain that wild factor. Get the crazy eyes in the evening, know how to relax that can teach us all lessons. Part of the jungle in your home. More popular? They are massively popular, more pet cats than dogs I think in America? Not checking youtube videos lately? LOL

Just love some kind of animal, that's what matters I think. Says a lot about a person how they care for animals. Never got the versus thing.
 
Scrabo said:
Cats are only loyal to the closest food provider. But I still love them - great scorpion detectors.
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Myth.

My wife does 99% of the feeding. I just about never fill the food bowl (just ask her). Except for one, I have always been our cats' favorite.

Much more about love, affection, and some intangible connection than food. Just like us.
 
Scrabo said:
I did run a business starting with 2 employees and sold it when I had 60 employees and currently run a smaller operation in a different field.
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Then you should understand that it costs money to buy equipment, hire staff and run a business.
You are also free to find a cheaper vet (that's like finding cheaper sushi).
 
weilke said:
Then you should understand that it costs money to buy equipment, hire staff and run a business.
You are also free to find a cheaper vet (that's like finding cheaper sushi).
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Nothing like taking advantage of a 'free fugu' offer....:lol:
 
I never fed our hangar cat, but in the mornings when the boss and I were planning the day she would be in my lap purring her heart out.
 
pmanton said:
Cats are loathsome, sneaky, disgusting creatures, ...
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Found this loathsome little guy abandoned a few months back and took him in. He doesn't mind getting his knuckles dirty helping me work on the car and keeps the squirrels out of the yard. :dunno:

DSCN3178.JPG


IMG_0008.JPG
 
weilke said:
We clearly need universal pet insurance. And it has to cover spay and neuter at 100% !!
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Joke as you may but I can tell you its worth every damn penny -particularly for the major stuff like tumor removal, chemo etc.

Used to be only 1 or 2 providers but that has changed a lot over the years with some using a benefit schedule for payments and others its a percentage.
 
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