What Price For Kitty?

Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

I agree with L. here. While flaming is a nice temporary release,
actual
discussion is much better for sharing information and possibly
changing
someone's mind.

One can disagree with the sentiment and not resort to personally
attacking the person. That's all I'm saying. Unfortunately the latter
seems to be many people's first line of offense. It's infantile
behavior, at best.


-L.

"-L." wrote in message
At least we have safeguards in place for kids, though.

You think so? It's an old joke, but it really is easier to have a kid than
to get a pet sometimes. I got my cat from a shelter, and they really did
the 20 questions thing on me to make sure I was fit. They don't do that
with children.

I love my cat. Don't get me wrong. Every time he has gotten sick over the
years, I have taken care of him. But after reading some stories about the
lengths people go to in keeping cats alive, I really got to thinking about
this. I hope I never do.

Glarb

What if it wasn't "your" cat? I have two cats of my own, but I've spent
hundreds of dollars on an assortment of stray cats who've shown up on my
doorstep. I had an $800 vet bill for one of "my" feral cats, I've spent
hundreds on a stray kitten with a persistent URI, and hundreds more on a
stray (non-feral) cat with struvite crystals. Both of them have moved
in with me, neither of my "real" cats are happy about it.

One of my ferals, a formerly beautiful long haired lynx point, comes up
to me to be petted, but only if I don't look at him, and only if he
can't see my hand coming for him. He's getting pretty matted now,
there's not much I can do about it--except spend a lot of money on him,
too. He's been neutered, that was his only visit to a vet. I only take
the manageable strays to the vet, except in an emergency. There is no
limit to how much I could spend trying to save cats, except for the
limits I make myself. Still, I worry that I might be becoming a "cat
collector".

I love my cats, I love my strays, I particularly love my most unlovable
ferals, but I can't cripple myself for a single cat. At some point,
saving one cat might mean losing all the others. Why do I even bother
at all when my efforts are insignificant compared to the need? I don't
have an answer. Usually I don't think about it, I just pull out Mr.
Plastic.

Mary wrote:



I would take out a second mortgage on my house for my cats.
Or an equity loan. And I would ask relatives for money if need be--
which is something I have done maybe twice in my life. I would ask
friends for money, something I have never done. I would sell
all my collectables to pay for my cats' health needs. I would do
everything I could, as long as I was not, as you say, Pam, putting them
through hell when they did not have a good chance at a decent
recovery. I am their caretaker, and it is my responsibility to not
only get them health care but also to see to it that they do not
suffer unnecessarily.




--
J Kimmel

www.metalinnovations.com

"Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum." - When you have
their full attention in your grip, their hearts and minds will follow.

No limit unless the cat was truly suffering and absolutely 100% terminal.
Been there, done that. Spent $1500 for a weekend of my 16 year old cat at
the emergency vet
when she had a stroke. She had to be put to sleep on the Monday following.
I had the money and I would have done ANYTHING to save her. ANYTHING.
I know many don't agree with that,but until they said it was hopeless, I'd
have gone further.
My cats are my kids, period.

--
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!
"Glarb" wrote in message
...
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

"ElvisRocks" wrote in message
...
No limit unless the cat was truly suffering and absolutely 100% terminal.
Been there, done that. Spent $1500 for a weekend of my 16 year old cat at
the emergency vet
when she had a stroke. She had to be put to sleep on the Monday
following.
I had the money and I would have done ANYTHING to save her. ANYTHING.
I know many don't agree with that,but until they said it was hopeless, I'd
have gone further.
My cats are my kids, period.


I'm sorry you had to lose your 16-year-old. At least you know
you did everything you could for her.

"Monique Y. Mudama" wrote in message
...
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.

Well, good. I guess I tend to skip a few steps at times.



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.

I wish I had had those decisions to make. My parents died very suddenly,
no illness no warning, when I was a very young adult. I wanted to take care
of them.



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.


It won't be your choice, unless you make very careful preparations.

I'm not replying to anyone in particular here (which is a good thing,
considering I'm not quite sure how to quote in google right now).

I'm going to say some things that probably won't go over well.
They may seem harsh and insensitive. Hell, they probably are harsh and
insensitive. There seems to be two primary questions being asked in
this thread. Is it right to set a financial limit on the life of a
pet? Should disadvantaged individuals be expected to never own a pet
because they could not afford medical care?

I think both these questions are really asking the same thing. Is the
pet's benefit to the well-being of a person more important than the
pet's right to life? Cause I have to say...the pet really doesn't
why it doesn't receive needed medical care. It doesn't matter if
you can't pay because you're unemployed or you won't pay because
you really want a fourth car. Most people in this thread are judging
imaginary situations based on the moral reasoning given for a choice.
If a cat requires a thousand dollar surgery but the owner is on food
stamps, would putting the cat to sleep be a bad choice? What if the
owner opted to put the cat down because the kids really wanted a
Gamecube? Would that be a bad decision?

You can go back and forth with examples like that forever. Hell, why
not give the person on food stamps a bum leg and the person with the
Gamecube a huge house and indoor swimming pool. Or try the
reverse...maybe the rich guy has four sick kids and the food stamp guy
is poor cause he's been at the slots all week. But there are two
important things to remember when you throw out those hypothetical
situations. One...none of it is imaginary. Both of these scenarios
happen everyday. There's a full freezer at my clinic to prove it.
Two...none of those nifty little circumstances matter. The ONLY thing
that matters is that cat ended up dead before it had to. When you're
dealing with life and death the only important thing is the outcome.
Everything else is just rhetoric. The cat isn't any less dead
because the owner was having major financial issues. It isn't any
deader because the owner just didn't really feel like paying for it.
The cat is just dead.

So, no, I don't believe people who can't afford it should own pets.
What the pet stands to lose is a hell of a lot more than what the
person could. I can't imagine not having pets. They give love and
warmth and humor and basically make every day just that much brighter.
But I wouldn't die without them. They would die if I couldn't pay
for their care. I also don't believe a person who doesn't want to
pay for their pet should have them. And I don't think there's all
that much of a difference between the two. And I don't think it's
just a matter of different views and that everyone has to decide on
their own how much they'd be willing to give. I know we're all
supposed to be tolerant and yadda yadda yadda. That's just rhetoric
too. That's like saying I can't quite understand a person's
decision to refuse a blood transfusion for a seven-year-old boy but I
support their right to do so. I understand it...I truly and honestly
do. But I sure as hell don't support it and I don't feel any need
to.

A pet is an awesome responsibility. The responsibility grows even
greater when you consider that you do have the legal right to end their
life at any time and for any reason. If you refuse a dog a blood
transfusion no police officer will come knocking at your door. Once
you take a pet into your home...they become your prisoner. They are
dependent on you for everything...including the right to keep on
breathing from one moment to the next. You have more control over
every aspect of their existence than you do over anything else in your
life, including any children you may have. Would I sacrifice my life
for my pets? Damn right. Would I lose my home? Been there, done
that, slept on the street corner. The fact that I love them makes such
decisions a bit easier but that's not why I'd do it. They are my
responsibility. Responsibility is all or nothing. There's no such
thing as being a little bit responsible. I have the power of life and
death over them. Stop and really think about that. Think about how
incredible that is. How frightening. If I'm taking on such a huge
and awesome responsibility I am going to do everything in my power to
make sure I don't fail it. I firmly believe many people forget just
how overwhelming a thing you're doing when you accept a pet into your
life.

And there's one other reason why I'd sacrifice everything for my
pets. My cats and rats and birds and lizards...they don't care if
I've fallen on hard times or if I just hit the lottery. They don't
care why I make the choices I make. The only thing that matters to
them is if they come home from the vet or if they end up in the freezer
wrapped in blue plastic. Life or death. Like responsibility,
there's nothing in-between.

Sethran

"Monique Y. Mudama" wrote in message
...
On 2005-02-15, -L. penned:

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.

I suspect that's more than a lot of people will ever make. Of course,
cost of
living varies wildly, so $40K could be a lot in some areas and barely
subsistance in others.


It sure is subsistance here.

"Glarb" wrote in message
...
"-L." wrote in message
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.

Then take a wild guess as to how many pets would be without homes if
financial criteria for owning them were established. Do you have any idea
how many pets would have to be put down?


Emotional blackmail only works on the weak-spirited and weak-minded.

How about you taking a wild guess as to how many cats would live miserable
lives and suffer long painful deaths that could have been prevented had
their owners not been either too cheap or just couldn't afford adequate
environmental enrichment and veterinary care.

Your problem is that you view cats as items you own rather than living,
feeling, thinking individuals. If you didn't, you wouldn't put a price on
their lives.

Your question: "what is your true limit?" is asinine because what you're
really saying is "how much do you love your cat in terms of dollars and
cents." Does a millionaire who spends $50,000 on veterinary care love his
cat more than a grocery clerk who can old spend $500? Do you see the utter
stupidity of your question?

"KellyH" wrote in message
...
I wrote:
How true. I actually like to debate, and enjoy threads that get long
and
heated, while others beg for people to stop disagreeing.



L wrote:
Gee, you wouldn't be referencing any other ng would you?

Nooo... not me It happens on every ng, though.


Lynnie is talking about the sickly saccharine rec.pets.cats.anecdotes,
only surpassed in its creepy party-line sweetness by the very icky
rec.pets.cats.community where they post in baby tale. *Gag* That
is about her speed, as she can dish it out but she just can't take it.