Saving the cat's meow

There comes a time in most pet owners' lives when they must decide how much money their pets' lives are worth. Straight Goods editor Susan Sperling found this out the hard way.

By: Susan Sperling

  Something about the way his MEOW sounded - more insistent than usual, more tortured - and I knew that I was about to face the dreaded pet owner's dilemma. How much would we pay to save Sam, our five-year old cat?
  I have to say, right off the bat, that I am not a "cat person"; how I ended up with two male cats is a story for another day. And even if I was a cat person, quite frankly I'm not certain that I would like Sam any more than I do. He's okay, I guess, for a smelly 18-pound hairball. He sheds everywhere, he doesn't groom himself, he tracks kitty litter through the house, and his litter box sits in the downstairs hallway, out of the way of every room in the house except my office, and far from everyone's olfactory senses but mine.
  Mark, my husband, is the cat lover. Even still, since our daughter Rachel was born 13 months ago, he's been heard rumbling once or twice about finding a new family for Sam.
 

As the vet continued, my mind started racing ahead to the bills that we face each month as a single-income family with one spouse in graduate school and childcare expenses

  But here we sat, on an unseasonably hot, sunny, Sunday afternoon in early May, in an examining room at the nearest 24-hour veterinary clinic. I'd mocked people (behind their backs, of course, I'm not that tactless) who had shelled out piles of money for canine chemotherapy and kitty kidney stones. And Sam needed a "procedure" to unclog a blocked bladder. How much would it cost? Let's see: $72 a day for a hospital stay that was expected to last at least three days, $240 for the procedure, $76 for x-rays, wait, there's the blood tests, urinalysis, anaesthesia, stitches, antibiotics, IV drip… as the vet continued speaking, my mind started racing ahead to the bills that we face each month as a single-income family with childcare expenses (Mark is a graduate student).
  $800. That brought me out of my reverie. $800 to save the life of this living, feeling being who can go on to live ten more years after the bladder blockage is removed. "I guess we have no choice," Mark said, just as I was saying, "Well, that's a lot of money. We need some time to think about it."
  "I understand," the vet told us sympathetically. "This discussion is a very common one here. I'll give you time alone to decide. I'll be back in five minutes."
 

Throughout the entire discussion, Sam's eyes bore into me as if pleading to be kept alive

  Five minutes? Did he just tell us we have five minutes to decide whether we can come up with almost a thousand dollars to save our cat's life? "If we don't do something quickly, his bladder will burst and he'll die." That said as the vet shut the examining room door.
  We debated the point back and forth for several minutes, with my husband arguing to save the cat as I, feeling more and more like I would be accosted by PETA at any moment, took the stance that we really couldn't afford the expenditure. What if the car was to break down the next day? What if I suddenly lose my job? What if there's a sale on patio furniture?
  Throughout the entire five-minute discussion, Sam rested on the table, breathing heavily, looking pathetic and pained. His eyes bore into me as if pleading to be kept alive. Frustrated, resentful, I turned to Mark and said, "you make the decision," knowing that in saying that, I had agreed that Sam should be saved.
  Later that day, I asked several friends and family members whether they would have paid to save their pet. I discovered that just about everyone has a cutoff point. One person told me that he'd "appraised" his dog's life at $1200. For others, it depended on the type of pet: "I'd save my dog," my brother Jeff told me. "But you paid for a cat?"

********************

  The call we were waiting for came Sunday afternoon. "Sam's fine," the vet told Mark.
  And there's good news for Canadian consumers: there are honest veterinarians out there. It turns out that the obstruction wasn't as bad as they'd initially feared, so Sam didn't need anaesthetic. We'll only have to pay $700.
  I guess we're not giving him away anytime soon.

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