kedreeva:

glumshoe:

ingayderzim:

There’s a difference between “if you can’t afford the vet don’t get pets” (which is true unfortunately) and like, someone starting a gofundme/donation post bc their pet has some sort of crazy unforeseen illness that was impossible to predict…dont be mean to ppl ebegging for their pets bc they budgeted $250 for shots and worm medicine and don’t have $2,000 laying around for feline MRI scans

People also tend to get nasty with “you should have gotten pet insurance you irresponsible idiot” but pet insurance refuses coverage for all kinds of things that an owner could not reasonably anticipate.

I say this as someone who very, very firmly believes in the adage “if you can’t afford the vet, you can’t afford the pet”: this quote is speaking about standard vet care. This quote refers to the average expected standard of care for an individual animal.

It means if you take in a healthy, young animal, you should be able to cover its yearly physical exam, its vaccinations/standard preventative treatment meds (like for example, flea/tick meds, heartworm, etc), and its spay/neuter as applicable. It means that you should have set aside anywhere from $100-300 (or pay for pet insurance) to cover if your animal gets the animal equivalent of a cold or a minor injury.

It means that if you take in an animal that needs advanced care, for example a diabetic animal, that you are prepared to pay for the standard care that particular animal will need. These costs are higher and, going into the deal, you should be aware of them and prepared to handle them.

The phrase has been passed around in short form and used to ridicule people to whom it does not apply. It should read: “If you cannot afford the standard, expected, and reasonable vet costs for your particular animal, then you can’t afford that animal.”

Because it does not mean that someone should not get a pet because something catastrophic might happen somewhere along the line that they won’t immediately have the funds to cover. As someone who has been there and done that and had to cover an unexpected, several-thousand-dollar emergency bill, I can say it’s absolutely unreasonable to demand that every person who owns an animal set aside that kind of money for something that might never actually happen.

Standard vet care you can expect- it’s standard. You know it’s coming, you can plan for it, and the money set aside for it you know is going to be used. It’s reasonable to expect that people be ready and able to cover those costs before acquiring a pet because they can know in advance what those costs are going to be and have the opportunity to assess whether or not they can do it.