Central Pennsylvania Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Vet Costs
Would anyone mind sharing how much you pay at your vet for somethings? I just got our puppy spayed and it seemed like it was a lot more expensive this time than when I had gotten our other dog spayed. It was going to be $504 to get her spayed and for 4 vaccines. They quoted me $189 when I called for the spay but then of course they had all these additional fees that I wasn't aware were seperate (IV fluids, laser incision, anesthesia, pain meds, etc).
I just felt like this was super high. I opted not to have the laser incision on her which saved us $75 dollars but I still paid well over $400 for her surgery and visit. I have talked to alot of people at work and in my neighborhood who felt this was really expensive.
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Re: Vet Costs
I can't remember exactly but I think ours was $350. We included anesthesia and pain meds, but she didn't receive IV fluids or a laser incision...at least not that we paid extra for.
I do know they reccommend special circumstances for some small (especially REALLY small) breed dogs, but mine didn't fall into those categories and didn't need any "special treatment"
ETA: I was quoted very high (over $500) and very low ($150) for the same surgery by different vets in York. We went with the moderately expensive ($350) because we had already been taking her to that vet, and they came highly recommended. That was more important to me than a cheap bill.
I just had Holly in for a wellness check (stool sample, rabies, kennel cough, and maybe one more shot? plus 5 minutes with the vet) and she's healthy as a horse -- $150.
I think it just depends on who you go to. Like I said on the spay -- I was quoted all over the place for spay. But we go to Shiloh Veterinary, they're close, we like their care/quality of service, and Holly likes it there.
Good enough for me.
ETA: I give Holly K9 Advantix (which costs me about $81 for 6 months, and I keep her on it year round because the dogs she plays with don't get anything, and I *hate* bugs) and Interceptor for heartworm (which runs about $70 a year). My vet's online pharmacy is -- hands down -- the cheapest place to buy both. With my last order, I got $10 off because I spent so much. LOL
Ok good to know you like Shiloh! Thanks for telling me about their online pharmacy - I'll ask them about that when I go in 2 weeks. I have a small breed dog and he needs to go every several months to have his anal glands expressed - its definately not a pleasure experience (for either of us!), haha.
I don't have any pets, but my one BFF is a vet in a large vet hospital chain, and she was getting pressured because her average income per patient was not up to company standard. She did not feel right pushing meds or services that were in no way necessary just to make money, and she may lose her job because of it.
I just wanted to put this out there that this does happen. Depending on the practice, they may be taking advantage of you.
For my dog it cost roughly I'd say no more than $150. We did get anesthesia but we did not do the laser incision type surgery.
You might want to look into getting pet insurance, we have VPI and just the standard plan runs us like $11 a month. It has truely been amazing, my dog was seen for 3 ear infections last summer, and each visit was over $100. We did have to pay that up front but within 2 weeks we got reimbursed all but $50 per visit. Something you may want to look into since you never know what illnesses or sicknesses your dog may get!
I LOVE Shiloh Vet Hospital! I go to the Manchester office and see Dr. Hurley. She is fabulous with my dog, Hanna. Everyone who works there is wonderful. I use their online pharmacy often (but have never gotten free shipping).
Hanna has some health issues so she has routine blood work and urine tests. She has surgery in December to remove some spots at the corners of her eyes, two lumps on her body and a dental cleaning. I was fearing the worst when I picked up her in terms of cost but my bill was less than $500 and that included liquid IV.
Last week she went for blood work and a urine sample. When it looked like the blood test alone was almost $150, they called my vet on her cell and decided to do a geriatric test instead, which was cheaper and included the urine sample. They go out of their way for their patients.
I keep all of my receipts so if you have any specific questions about costs for things, let me know. Hanna was already spayed when I adopted her so I can't help you there.
ETA: Shiloh has a coupon on their website to save $10 on your first vet visit. I found it too late
To the OP, that does sound high but I'm not 100% sure. We got both of our dogs from the SPCA, so spaying was included in the adoption cost. We go to Shiloh Vet, too. We just adopted our 2nd dog from the SPCA and took her to the vet for an exam and a few shots. She also had the fecal test for the heartworm and they obtained cultures from her ear for probable ear mites. The vet also thought she heard an extra heartbeat while listening to hear heart. They vet recommended an EKG, which we did. Fortunately, her heart is ok. We also bought the heartworm med, ear cleaner and ear drops. For all that, we paid about $300.
Shiloh is wonderful!!! The vet called me later to go over the EKG results and spent about 5 minutes discussing the results and talking about our pup! I've always been pleased with Shiloh.
(sorry if no paragraphs - typing this from my phone)
I'm late coming into this post but I didn't see anyone address your Heartguard question. IMO, it is absolutely essential to give some kind of heartworm preventative. If your dog gets heartworms (and they do occur in our area), treatment is expensive, time-consuming, and very, very hard on the dog- and the heartworms will eventually kill your dog if you don't treat them. You also have to have your dog tested for heartworms before going on the preventative because they CANNOT have the preventative if they currently have heartworms.
I know the preventative is expensive, but you can buy a 6 month supply for like $100 - definitly worth it to avoid having to go through (and to put your dog throuh) the expense and pain of treating the worms.