A Visit to the Vet

As any pet owner knows, your endearing and lovable fur baby is an ongoing expense.

Seriously not staged ... as if you could stage cats ...

There’s the food, litter or pickup baggies, collars/leashes, and toys (or outfits if you’re that kind of owner ... which we are not ...).

Then there’s the vet.

We recently took our kitties in for their annual vet visit.  I’m not a stickler for precise yearly visits as our cats are in-door only.  We take them in every 1.5 years or so.

We hadn’t gone to the vet since we moved last May so I first had to find a new provider.  An internet search directed me to an animal hospital on our side of town and with a military discount – score!

One of the problems with the vet, just like human doctors, is that you really can’t budget properly until you’ve established yourself with a place and know what to expect.

I decided to budget $300 to get Ajax and Draco up to speed on exams and shots.

I was pleasantly surprised to have majorly overbudgeted for our visit.

For one cat, our bill totaled:

·        Wellness Exam:                   $38.13

·        Annual Vaccine (FVRCP):  $17.61

·        Rabies Shot (1 year):          $19.13

That brought our total for 2 cats to $149.74 and then we got a military discount of $7.49 off (not major, but every little bit helps!).

All in all, we paid $142.25 for the cats.  Given that we don’t have to bring them back for another year, that’s quite the deal.

Except that we did.  My adorable fuzzer Draco has been peeing outside of the box lately.  He's always had accidents here and there, but it was starting to be every day and in our laundry.  I suspected he had a kitty UTI so we took in him.

Turns out I was right.  He was just getting over one, which makes me feel bad we didn't get him in sooner, but now we've got some antibiotics.

I knew this visit would be expensive.  Here's our tab:

Office Visit:                        $44.81

Cystocentesis:                    $18.45

Lab Work:                          $32.91

Pills:                                   $22.04

With tax + our military discount, we racked up $113.76.

Totally worth it, since cats can die from untreated UTIs.  But unexpected nonetheless.  Will be keeping an eye on Draco over the next few weeks.  

We also found a plug-in diffuser that has some hormone that calms cats and helps to prevent accidents.  It's called Feliway and it's made a big difference.  We had our first accident in about three weeks and it was a very small piddle.  The cats are strangely more cuddly too, which is not a complaint!

How much do you usually spent at the vet?