Ailing pets propel profusion of care
Loving owners run up big bills for range of complex procedures
The patient was lying on his side, asleep under anesthesia, as a machine measuring his breathing beeped soothingly.
While the surgeon scrubbed up, medical technicians disinfected the skin near the elbow, where a tumor was to be removed.
The surgery was fairly routine — even though the patient had four legs and a fur coat.
“We kind of mirror human medicine,” said Sheila J. Barr, hospital administrator at Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center, where the surgery on the dog was done.
Veterinary medicine isn’t just about spaying or neutering your pet anymore.
Companion animals now can get MRI exams, ultrasounds, cruciate ligament repairs, hip replacement surgery and other specialized procedures.
High-tech scanning equipment and complicated surgeries are common. “That’s driven to some extent by client demand,” said Jim Flanders, a small-animal surgeon and one of the medical directors of the Cornell University Hospital for Animals.
Devoted owners who have the desire and the financial means are turning to pet acupuncture, pet dental braces, pet physical therapy, pet psychics and even pet funeral homes.
Animal lovers have more options than ever to keep their pets happy and healthy, but these improvements in the level of care come at a price. Some procedures cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, and some pet owners admit to spending $10,000 or $20,000 on vet bills.
Still, dedicated pet owners aren’t complaining. They say their cats and dogs are like family and they will do whatever is necessary to take care of them.
“There’s not much that I’d want to spend my money on that’s more important than my pets,” said Maureen Donnelly, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University at Buffalo who recently lost a dog to cancer and another to an infection.
Donnelly and her boyfriend had a ramp built on their deck so that their remaining dog, Walter, an elderly mutt with arthritis, could get to their backyard.
A poll released last week by the Associated Press and Petside.com on the ties between pet owners and their animals confirmed this point: Half the respondents said they believe their pets are full-fledged members of their household.
“He’s our son. I don’t have biological, two-legged children. So he’s our fur baby,” Marisa Bergsma said of her golden retriever, Sir Thomas Samuel Caffrey.
Bergsma and her husband, Dave, drive at least every other week from their home near Welland, Ont., to Orchard Park for chemotherapy and other treatment for Sir Thomas.
The Bergsmas, who own a trucking company, have gotten very close to the center staff, notably veterinarian David Brummer, as Sir Thomas battled lymphoma and a heart condition.
About 62 percent of U. S. households own a pet, and pet owners will spend $45.4 billion on their animals this year, the American Pet Products Association estimates.
Of that total, $12.2 billion will go to veterinary care, a 10 percent increase over 2008.
Ann Dudeck, who works as a vet assistant at Georgetown Animal Clinic in Amherst, and her husband, Josh, own two great Danes, two rescue cats, four ferrets, some fish and a cockatiel.
The West Seneca resident said her records show she’s spent $26,259 since 1996 on vet bills for her pets, everything from surgeries and chemotherapy to routine visits.
“That’s a large down payment on a house,” Dudeck said. “It is a lot, and it’s hard to deal with it sometimes, but they’re part of your family.”
Pets require more care because, as a result of better preventive care, medicine, vitamins and diet, they are living longer.
But this extra money also is paying for new and advanced veterinary procedures.
The Orchard Park center, with a staff of 112, is open 24/7 to serve about 12,000 pets each year. The facility has examining rooms, a surgery room, an intensive care unit, a laboratory for urinalysis and other diagnostic testing, a blood donation room, a pharmacy and a kitchen.
The center also can perform gastrointestinal endoscopies, which involve inserting a flexible fiber-optic tube with a tiny camera down the pet’s throat, and complicated surgeries such as cruciate ligament repairs.
Jenny Rizzo first took Einstein, her 2- year-old purebred Yorkshire terrier, to the Orchard Park center in May 2008 after the dog developed problems with its balance.
A seizure prompted Rizzo to take her dog to Cornell, where a magnetic resonance imaging exam and a spinal tap determined he had a walnut-sized tumor in his brain.
Rizzo, a law student and part-time reporter at Channel 7, gives Einstein a regimen of chemotherapy, an antibiotic and a steroid to cut down on inflammation around his tumor. Einstein’s seizures have stopped, and he has surpassed the seven to 11 months he was given to live. But his kidney function is degrading, and Rizzo doesn’t know how long he will last.
The Elmwood Village resident said some friends think she’s crazy for spending as much as she has on Einstein, but she doesn’t regret it.
“I love my dog. I can go get another dog, but it’s not Einstein,” said Rizzo.
Cornell’s animal hospital in Ithaca has a large staff of specialists as well as up-to-date testing and surgical equipment.
Postsurgery rehab, such as swimming therapy, and less-invasive laparoscopic surgeries are among the procedures available for pets today, said Flanders, the small-animal surgeon.
“With almost every specialty comes specialized equipment,” Flanders said. “It’s usually something that’s been around for a while in human medicine, and we adopt and adapt it.”
Not every pet owner has the means, or the desire, to pay for expensive procedures. And surgery or radiation treatment isn’t always the right answer for a sick pet, experts said. Owners have to weigh the age of the pet, how stressful the surgery and post-surgery recovery will be and what the pet’s quality of life will be afterward.
In response to rising costs, some owners have turned to pet health insurance, though estimates suggest just 2 percent to 4 percent of Americans have done so.
High-tech veterinary care isn’t the only outlet for pet owners. Alternative and holistic treatments such as pet acupuncture are growing popular, though some two-legged skeptics question their value.
And the specialized care doesn’t end when a pet dies: Grieving owners now can retain the services of a pet funeral home.
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