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#51
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On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:22:04 -0500, equalizer wrote:
On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 04:43:48 GMT, "Glarb" wrote: I've been thinking about this. I have spent huge sums of money on the cat I have had for the past seven or eight years. But I have money, and I don't think about it. But if I didn't have money -- let's say living from paycheck to paycheck -- and the vet came in and said, "$850 for labwork and surgery." Forgive me, but I would probably have to draw the line there and have the poor thing put to rest. I know this makes me a bad person, but come on y'all, what is your true limit on such matters? Glarb I'm doing well, and in fact in lieu of insurance, I have an emergency bank account set up for the cats that has about $1600 in it so far. I put in $10 a week plus whatever interest my savings account makes. Never the less, each cat (I have 4) has a separate credit card with a $10000 line on each. They've never been used and are stored in my fireproof safety box. If need be, I'd max 'em out and get more. eq That's a good idea about the credit cards. I'll start accepting those offers that always come in the mail. |
#52
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Glarb wrote: (...) For a family member I would sacrifice everything, including my own life. You would? I wouldn't. There is a strict limit on the cat, however. Come on people, get real. I'm sure there is a practical limit for all of us, but I cannot say what mine is. It's very difficult to play the hypotheticals here, and this is something I've thought about before. I think the decision is likely to be based on quality of life, rather than cash per se. For people who have a fairly concrete cash limit, what determines this? The cost of the pet? Intelligence of the pet? Would you pay less to save a rat than a cat? I keep rodents as well as cats, and I must admit that I would not break the bank to save the former. This is not a decision based on cost, just that I feel less attachment to my rodents than my cats. (If rat people heard me say this they would stuff lab blocks up my nose until they came out of my ears). From elsewhere on the magical interweb, via a thread elsewhere on rpch+b, an animal rights activist addresses a student audience: http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_.../headline/2732 'Speaking to over 100 horrified spectators, Best said he'd sacrifice the life of a stranger to save his dog. Here's how The Daily Iowan reported the incident: "If you saw a baby dying and a dog dying, which would you save?" one audience member asked. "You need to be more specific with your question," Best replied. If a house with his dog and someone he didn't know was burning, he said he would save his dog, prompting another wave of gasps. ' Clearly the website - and the audience - strongly rails against the guy saving his dog versus an unknown human. I wonder how many of us here think we would choose the cat over the human. I'm sure I would choose my cat over an unknown human. It's also very easy to make up bizarre hypotheticals about what you would do to save your cat. Amputate a finger? A limb? Kill someone? Eat tripe? Your own tripe? ('Well, I would stab myself in the ear repeatedly with a frozen herring, but I wouldn't saw off my wrist using a sharpened carrot.') In the end I'm not sure how much any of these games matter when the faecal matter hits the rotary air-agitation apparatus. Steve. |
#53
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#54
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Mary wrote: "Steve G" wrote in message oups.com... (...) Are you saying you would sacrifice your life for your cat(s)? How does that follow? Oops, I think my scissors slipped. Giving some context, Glarb said: "For a family member I would sacrifice everything, including my own life. There is a strict limit on the cat, however. Come on people, get real." And you said: "Okay. "Real" is that you don't love your cats the way many of us do. " Which seems to imply that you would sacrifice your life for your cats. Steve. |
#55
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Mary and Anyone else Interested,
Have your sister get in touch with SPAYUSA. I'm not sure of the URL, so just do a Google for it. There is help out there! Hemma |
#56
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"Steve G" wrote in message oups.com... Mary wrote: "Steve G" wrote in message oups.com... (...) Are you saying you would sacrifice your life for your cat(s)? How does that follow? Oops, I think my scissors slipped. Giving some context, Glarb said: "For a family member I would sacrifice everything, including my own life. There is a strict limit on the cat, however. Come on people, get real." And you said: "Okay. "Real" is that you don't love your cats the way many of us do. " Which seems to imply that you would sacrifice your life for your cats. Steve. Ahh, okay, I see. I mentioned in a previous post that I do not consider my cats to be "like family members." I consider them to BE family members, albeit not genetically. In saying this: "For a family member I would sacrifice everything, including my own life. There is a strict limit on the cat, however. Come on people, get real." Glarb is saying that he differentiates, with regard to how much he would spend in order to save/help his family members and his cats. Now if I consider my cats, with regard to how much I would spend on their health, to be on par with my human family members and Glarb considers his to be less, then I love my cats more than he loves his cats. It seemed simple to me. This is why he can even stand to THINK about "Well, $600 I might do, but at $850 they can euthanize the cat. (And that is why "What the hell is wrong with you" was my idea of an appropriate response to his question. Because of the way I feel about my cats, he might as well have asked, "Okay, how much would you really spend to save Granny? Your house? Your car? Everything you own?" I would never make any statement about sacrificing my life--for anything. Not that I necessarily would not, I just really would not announce it on Usenet, whether I would or wouldn't. My sense is that the phrase itself if not truly meant by most people who use it. |
#57
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On 2005-02-15, Mary penned:
Now if I consider my cats, with regard to how much I would spend on their health, to be on par with my human family members and Glarb considers his to be less, then I love my cats more than he loves his cats. It seemed simple to me. This is why he can even stand to THINK about "Well, $600 I might do, but at $850 they can euthanize the cat. (And that is why "What the hell is wrong with you" was my idea of an appropriate response to his question. Because of the way I feel about my cats, he might as well have asked, "Okay, how much would you really spend to save Granny? Your house? Your car? Everything you own?" When you put it that way, your initial response makes a lot more sense to me. On some level, though, we do have to make these decisions for our human relatives. Someone close to me has recently been wrestling with the question of how much treatment to give an elderly family member who's had Alzheimer's for years and so, in many senses, really isn't herself anymore, anyway. Now, yes, these questions are mostly a matter of "will this just prolong her suffering, or will it actually allow her to live a decent life for a while longer?", but it does seem to me that at some level, there's a monetary factor. You might keep a close relative who's not "themselves" anymore alive as long as is physically possible if money were in infinite supply, but would you mortgage your house for a few more days with a person who doesn't even recognize you anymore? Who isn't even aware of her surroundings? "You" in this case meaning the generic third-person, not you in particular. Thinking about it now, if I eventually am in this sort of situation, I do not want my family going broke trying to keep me alive for a few more days or months when there's no hope of a true recovery. As ugly as it is, I do think that money is a factor. At least in situations where it's not clear that the patient will actually improve. Getting back to pets, I know that my parents would not have spent thousand(s) of dollars on my dog Puma if he had needed surgery. They strongly believe in pet responsibility, but I guess they did have some nebulous idea about how much they'd do for a pet. Then again, this was never put to the test. Maybe they would have changed their minds if it had come to that. Me, I have trouble imagining myself allowing Oscar to come to harm if I could at all possibly prevent it, but I'm sure there's a point at which I would say "enough's enough." I can't imagine what that point would be, but it would probably have as much to do with Oscar's misery as with the monetary aspect. I can't imagine a situation in which the medical expenses were too high for me to realistically pay *and* she had any decent chance of a full recovery. I would imagine that if I needed to pay a lump sum beyond my means, the prognosis would not be good. -- monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca |
#58
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Glarb wrote: "-L." wrote in message I also recognize that many people with cats truly cannot afford adequate vet care. Yes, they shouldn't have cats if they cannot afford them, but many people do. They do the best with what they have. If you limited pet ownership to people who can afford catastrophic health care for their pet, then you'd have an awful lot of homeless dogs and cats, don't you think? Absolutely. But I truly think if one cannot afford "adequate" pet care, one shouldn't have a pet. I didn't get a pet until I made well over $40K/year (1990), just for that reason. -L. |
#59
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Karen Chuplis wrote: snip The problem is that often people who talk and think in limits as our original poster are not scraping the bottom. Rather, they are just talking about money that is available. They are not talking about losing their house etc. Well, is getting to the point of losing your house a sane limit, though? It isn't in my book... I hated when people would surrender their animal for euth because of lack of funds and then go out and get in their BRAND NEW CAR. Grrrr. -L. |
#60
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Glarb wrote: "Monique Y. Mudama" wrote in message It's a scary question, but I'm sure that all of us have wondered at one time or another how much we could really afford to spend to keep our loved ones alive. That's one of the reasons so many folks talk about either having pet insurance or keeping a separate account just for pet emergencies. For a family member I would sacrifice everything, including my own life. There is a strict limit on the cat, however. Come on people, get real. I agree. I just don't know what that limit is because it is circumstance-dependant. -L. |
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