Having a dog (or any pet, really) adds so much to your life: love, companionship, humor, but also vet bills. Often, opening that bill after even the quickest trip to the pup doc is enough to make your eyeballs fly clean out of their sockets. So what can you do to take care of your little puppercini while also taking care of your bank account?
“Buying a food scale and a baby scale to track my cats has changed the game. They’re indoor, so a tiny bit chunky (but healthy), and they’ve all slimmed down. Most people don’t realize just how little food they actually need. They’ll eat 400 calories if you make it available, but really they need about half of that. A rule of thumb to start is about 20 calories for every pound. So if your cat weighs 14 lbs and you want it to lose weight and are aiming for 11 lbs, you provide 220kcal to start.”
2. “I’m a dog groomer. Get your dog used to teeth brushing and brush them once a day (or as much as you can). I see way too many dogs with teeth rotting out of their mouth and can’t imagine how painful it must be. Don’t wait until the vet has to pull the teeth out; prevention is key!! Also, bad teeth can cause so many other health issues.”
3. “Keep up with preventive care. The $30 parvo vaccine is significantly cheaper than treating for parvo. The $30 lepto vaccine is significantly cheaper than treating for lepto. The $50 tick tablet is a lot cheaper than treating for Lyme. The preventive care keeps your pet healthy and out of the clinic.”
4. “Use a leash! The number of dogs hit by cars, in dog fights, and hit with porcupine quills would be almost 0 if people actually used leashes. That includes in your driveway, as at least 20-30% of dogs I see hit are by their owners in their driveway.”
5. “Don’t give pets human medications unless you’re directed to by a vet. Especially don’t give them aspirin, as it doesn’t work well and then prevents me from giving them another type of anti-inflammatory that actually does work.”
6. “Vet tech here, and I really recommend doing basic home exams. At least once a week, while you’re petting them, do a snoot-to-tail check. Start petting at their head gently to look, feel, and sometimes smell everything: eyes, ears, under their chin. Open their mouth and look at their teeth, top and bottom. Then work down their neck; feel along their spine level by level, then to the sides and down. Then along their back and sides, and down their limbs. Then do a gentle range of motion with their limbs, and move on to their paw pads. End with looking at their backsides, groin, and genitals, then tail. The goal is to follow the same routine every time. Essentially, if something changes and seems odd, that’s a vet call.”
7. “Don’t leave things — especially food— within reach of any dog. They’ll grab it and consume it if given the opportunity. The number of drugged dogs I’ve seen because they grab edibles is wild.”
8. “Get pet insurance or have a dedicated credit card to afford emergencies. Test your pets. Blood work, urinalysis, tick-borne disease tests, heartworm tests. Living in ignorance does not help your pet. And actually research your dog and its breed(s) to prepare yourself for possible diseases and illnesses they may be predisposed to.”
9. “Research every plant you bring home. Many popular houseplants are extremely toxic to pets, especially cats. There are SO many plants that are safe, though, like orchids, African violets, and Hoyas.”
10. “Get a car harness and always strap them in! You don’t want a pet to go flying because you had to brake hard! You don’t want an agitated dog to jump on you while driving because they saw something on your side! You don’t even want your injured dog running into the woods because someone crashed your car!”
11. “My older dog was prone to UTIs, and the second question my vet asked was how often I washed her food and water bowls. Dirty bowls can lead to health issues. Make sure you wash those bowls often.”
12. “There’s more and more data that grain-free diets containing legumes are linked to dilated cardiomyopathy. I would avoid grain-free diets in general, as it’s a marketing gimmick anyway.”
13. “If you notice something wrong with your pet, don’t wait days/weeks hoping it will get better on its own. CALL us right away. A phone call is always free. We can triage your pet over the phone and tell you if it’s an issue that needs an appointment or if it’s okay to monitor at home. If we catch an issue and start treatment early, less treatment will be needed, which means fewer vet visits. If you wait until the problem gets worse, it’s more expensive for you and will require more follow-up visits.”
14. “Stop using retractable leashes. People don’t realize the mechanism that stops the leash from going any farther CAN break, and then boom. Fluffy runs out into the middle of the street and gets hit by a car.”
15. “I’m a GP/ER vet, and raw food diets are not recommended for pets. There’s no data that raw is any different than cooked, but raw diets are frequently recalled for foodborne illness.”
16. “Brachycephalic dogs and hot days do not mix. At. All. Don’t take your bulldog to the dog park in 100-degree weather. Hell, it’s even a risk taking them out if it’s 85 degrees.”
17. “Let us do diagnostic tests. Yes, they can be expensive, but it’s a heck of a lot cheaper to do things ‘right’ the first time around than it is to keep coming back to the clinic five or six times for appointments and trying multiple different non-refundable medications because we’re playing a stupid guessing game of ‘what’s wrong with Fluffy.’ Even if the diagnostic tests all come back normal, it rules out conditions and gives us a clearer picture of the reason Fluffy is vomiting or scratching their skin off.”
18. “Stop giving human food to your pets, other than some limited veggies. Yeah, your dog likes bacon, but it’s giving them the shits and can lead to digestive issues or pancreatitis.”
19. “When your vet wants to aspirate a lump, say yes. They found a tiny, pea-sized bump on my dog’s flank that felt completely harmless, just like a little lipoma. I almost told the vet not to bother, but she insisted on doing a quick needle aspirate. Turned out to be a grade 2 mast cell tumor. We had it removed with clean margins the next week, and he lived another six great years. If I had just done the ‘let’s wait and see’ thing like I originally wanted to, it would have been a totally different story.”
20. “As an exclusively exotic animal nurse to the general pet owner crowd: do your research before getting ANY animal. A billion problems could be avoided with proper husbandry. Concerning dogs, PLEASE research your dog breeds before purchasing one. It absolutely destroys us when someone drops $5K on a French bulldog and then balks and complains about the $100 bloodwork.”
22. “If you have a puppy, they either need to be supervised or in a crate at all times. It only takes one second for them to eat something they shouldn’t, and they will eat something they shouldn’t. We hate doing foreign body surgeries as much as you hate paying for them.”
23. And finally, “Don’t listen to most TikTok influencers, because most of the time their advice isn’t good and they’re just trying to sell useless products.”
Are you a veterinarian with any tips on how to improve your pet’s health while saving money? Are you a pet owner who has picked up any helpful tips from your vet? Tell me in the comments or use the anonymous form below. Your response may be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed article!
Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.
