Dog Ownership (1 Viewer)

ovduk78 · Jul 28, 2023

napolimp said:
Do you guys recommend getting a health plan at the vets, and if so what do they usually cover? This would be alongside insurance.

Any vet suggestions in Coventry or surround too?

We have pet insurance for Max which I think is a must & pay about £30 per month. We've never had any issues with claims for our previous springers and the price of treatment at vets has got ridiculous. We had a claim for over £6k when Bonnie did her cruciate which was settled promptly. As spaniels get older they start excluding common ailments like ears & eyes so we took out a more basic insurance. As for vet's health plans we've never bothered as we've always thought them a waste of money.
I can't give any specific vet recommendation for the Coventry area but we have used the vet at Pets at Home where we live and have had no issues with them.

Flying Fokker · Jul 28, 2023

napolimp said:
Do you guys recommend getting a health plan at the vets, and if so what do they usually cover? This would be alongside insurance.

Any vet suggestions in Coventry or surround too?

Usually 6 monthly check ups, inoculations, worming and flea tablets.
BTW. Pet insurance is worth the money.

Unfortunately, my dog has just been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. So sad because he is such a good dog. 1500 spent on investigations But it has spread. We’d pay anyway but it’s good value at £50/month. John Lewis pet insurance.

Grendel · Jul 28, 2023

Flying Fokker said:
Usually 6 monthly check ups, inoculations, worming and flea tablets.
BTW. Pet insurance is worth the money.

Unfortunately, my dog has just been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. So sad because he is such a good dog. 1500 spent on investigations But it has spread. We’d pay anyway but it’s good value at £50/month. John Lewis pet insurance.

I honestly think pet insurance now is a total rip off. It’s on average £50 a month and as a dog gets older it increases and there are breed exemptions and excess Critically most freeze treatment at £3,000

If you are disciplined enough to put £50 a month away in 5 years you’ve reached the level.

It’s personal choice but I’m not a fan

Flying Fokker · Jul 28, 2023

Grendel said:
I honestly think pet insurance now is a total rip off. It’s on average £50 a month and as a dog gets older it increases and there are breed exemptions and excess Critically most freeze treatment at £3,000

If you are disciplined enough to put £50 a month away in 5 years you’ve reached the level.

It’s personal choice but I’m not a fan

Yes, it’s a rip off. So is the vet nowadays.

Greggs · Jul 29, 2023

Flying Fokker said:
Yes, it’s a rip off. So is the vet nowadays.

100% in cahoots with the insurance companies.

ovduk78 · Jul 29, 2023

Pet insurance is a massive rip off. We were quoted £54 per lunar month to insure out 14 year old springer. That is more than we pay for 2 cars, a motorbike and our house insurance and yet the payoffs for those would probably far exceed anything we would claim for the dog.

Tommo1993 · Jul 29, 2023

Going across to France in October. Just under £200 for a health certificate and about £60 for a rabies jab. This is all for the dog, not me!

Would probably take on a rescued dog and give it a good life at some point. Poppy though, we wanted her as a pup to get her well trained early doors. It was all (healthy!) treats and repetition. Personally think the biggest learning curve was the right food. The good stuff obviously comes at a price but worth it. Her season played absolute havoc with her diet and obedience, the sod!

tisza · Jul 29, 2023

We just do rescue dogs - 3 atm. Never regret doing it.

Ian1779 · Jul 29, 2023

We had insurance for our dog who ended up needing a hip replacement at 5 years old. At the time it was a god send as the operation and recovery was around 5K and we were paying about £40 a month to insure.
But now he is nearly 10 the insurance cost is nearly £100 per month and he is about to cross a threshold where they won’t cover a load of things now, so we are going to stop paying for the policy and just put that money aside if needed.

duffer · Jul 29, 2023

Ian1779 said:
We had insurance for our dog who ended up needing a hip replacement at 5 years old. At the time it was a god send as the operation and recovery was around 5K and we were paying about £40 a month to insure.
But now he is nearly 10 the insurance cost is nearly £100 per month and he is about to cross a threshold where they won’t cover a load of things now, so we are going to stop paying for the policy and just put that money aside if needed.

That's excellent advice. I'm paying about £25/month, but that's for a one year old dog.

I can live with that, but once they get older and the policy starts excluding things there's (imho) a point when it gets cheaper to self insure, by putting the equivalent amount aside each month.

Some good advice here folks, as usual. It's great to hear about all of the furry friends out there. What's the saying, "Not all humans deserve dogs, but all dogs deserve humans.".

ovduk78 · Jul 29, 2023

duffer said:
That's excellent advice. I'm paying about £25/month, but that's for a one year old dog.

I can live with that, but once they get older and the policy starts excluding things there's (imho) a point when it gets cheaper to self insure, by putting the equivalent amount aside each month.

Some good advice here folks, as usual. It's great to hear about all of the furry friends out there. What's the saying, "Not all humans deserve dogs, but all dogs deserve humans.".

When our springer got to 14 and they started excluding most treatments from the insurance we took out basic cover for about £9 per month.

On the subject of food Max is on a raw food diet. The food can be bought ready made but we buy frozen meat and mix it with a veg/fruit/supplement mix that we put in a food processor and he is on a 75/25 meat/veg mix. It is recommended that he is fed 2% of his body weight in meat per day but he is on more than that as he is very active and he gets skinny. We have a small freezer in the for just for his meat. It costs us about £2 per day to feed him which is a lot cheaper than buying ready made raw food like Nature's Menu.

tisza · Jul 29, 2023

Other thing with rescue dogs is you have to be calm. They can be prone to be more nervous than other dogs particularly when they are stressed or something triggers previous unhappy/unpleasant memories.

napolimp · Jul 29, 2023

ovduk78 said:
Pet insurance is a massive rip off. We were quoted £54 per lunar month to insure out 14 year old springer. That is more than we pay for 2 cars, a motorbike and our house insurance and yet the payoffs for those would probably far exceed anything we would claim for the dog.

You pay less than 54 a month for hourse insurance, 2 cars, and motorbike combined??!! That doesn't even cover my car insurance.

ovduk78 · Jul 29, 2023

napolimp said:
You pay less than 54 a month for hourse insurance, 2 cars, and motorbike combined??!! That doesn't even cover my car insurance.

Yes we do, we haven't got brand new cars but living in Central Scotland is a lot cheaper than in the Midlands. Our house is about £180 & my bmw 800 is only £60 which is a benefit of being old.

napolimp · Jul 29, 2023

ovduk78 said:
Yes we do, we haven't got brand new cars but living in Central Scotland is a lot cheaper than in the Midlands. Our house is about £180 & my bmw 800 is only £60 which is a benefit of being old.

60 per year? Wow, I'm getting rinsed. My small 1.6 diesel cost me 600 2 years ago, 700 last year, and now 800 this year.

ovduk78 · Jul 29, 2023

napolimp said:
60 per year? Wow, I'm getting rinsed. My small 1.6 diesel cost me 600 2 years ago, 700 last year, and now 800 this year.

My wife's 2016 Mazda 2 & my 2010 Volvo c30 are both about £200. I always check on comparison sites before renewing but I know premiums have had a big rise this year & we've managed to miss that.

napolimp · Jul 29, 2023

ovduk78 said:
My wife's 2016 Mazda 2 & my 2010 Volvo c30 are both about £200. I always check on comparison sites before renewing but I know premiums have had a big rise this year & we've managed to miss that.

I reckon it's my address, I vaguely heard we had a problem with vehicle thefts round here. No one would want to steal my car anyway.

duffer · Jul 29, 2023

napolimp said:
I reckon it's my address, I vaguely heard we had a problem with vehicle thefts round here. No one would want to steal my car anyway.

It's that, or they've seen how you drive mate.

Joking aside, if some fecker does nick my car, I sincerely hope they're allergic to dog hair.

napolimp · Jul 30, 2023

Thinking about pet insurance, can you guys give me a vague idea of approx how much vet bills cost for various treatments if something did happen to your dog? Thanks.

Ian1779 · Jul 30, 2023

I’m sure people can add more, but for a set of bloods to investigate an animal illness you are looking between £100-200
If you have older pets and they need dental work doing (cat or dog) you are looking at about £400-500 a sitting

ovduk78 · Jul 30, 2023

napolimp said:
Thinking about pet insurance, can you guys give me a vague idea of approx how much vet bills cost for various treatments if something did happen to your dog? Thanks.

An initial consultation is around £35 with further visits around £30. Max has problems with his ears so we had 2 visits, injection & ear drops and it was about £110. Our last springer had a tooth absess and we were looking at about £700 to get the tooth removed. We disagreed with vet as she was 14 1/2 & didn't want her operated on and we thought the vet should give antibiotics a chance and afterwards she never had the problem again.
She also did her cruciate and that was over £6k but that was at a specialist animal hospital and would have been considerably less at our vets..
I think we are covered for bills up to £9k per annum and pay £30 per month with Animal Friends Ìnsurance.

fernandopartridge · Jul 31, 2023

Anybody got any tips for how to deal with the little shit having a pop at the two resident cats?

Mcbean · Jul 31, 2023

fernandopartridge said:
Anybody got any tips for how to deal with the little shit having a pop at the two resident cats?

You need a bit of patience - tight lead in the house with some treats /ball ( whatever turns him on) - treat when he ignores them - if he has a pop put him outside and then try again

fernandopartridge · Jul 31, 2023

Mcbean said:
You need a bit of patience - tight lead in the house with some treats /ball ( whatever turns him on) - treat when he ignores them - if he has a pop put him outside and then try again

He did hold off last night last thing to which I gave him praise, but then this morning he went looking for them

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

Mcbean · Jul 31, 2023

fernandopartridge said:
He did hold off last night last thing to which I gave him praise, but then this morning he went looking for them

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

you might have to engineer it - like the cat walking past his nose

Robinshio · Jul 31, 2023

Mcbean said:
you might have to engineer it - like the cat walking past his nose

let them meet when the dog is sleepy - late evening . Dogs like their sleep more than chasing cats

Houchens Head · Aug 1, 2023

fernandopartridge said:
Anybody got any tips for how to deal with the little shit having a pop at the two resident cats?

He's only a pup at the moment FP. My old dog shared our house with our cat. We got her as a kitten and Floyd (my old boy) fell in love with her, even to the point of helping to care for her kittens when she had some a few years later! The used to go off to the woods for a walk together and Floyd was really protective of her. So, give your lovely pup a bit of time, let him get used to the cats and I'm sure they will all be best of friends. Animals are extremely resilient!

Playing in the garden
.

Sleeping at the top of the stairs together.

napolimp · Aug 1, 2023

Hey. Does anyone have any recommendations for what to do about flea/tick/worm prevention? He's currently on Simparica Trio which I believe needs a prescription from the vet. That's what the rescue centre had him on. I'm new to all this but want to do whatever's best for him. I'm unsure whether I should go get a prescription for something myself from the vet, get a healthcare plan from the vet to cover the annual preventative medication, or purchase some sort of non-prescription preventative myself.

Thanks.

ovduk78 · Aug 1, 2023

napolimp said:
Hey. Does anyone have any recommendations for what to do about flea/tick/worm prevention? He's currently on Simparica Trio which I believe needs a prescription from the vet. That's what the rescue centre had him on. I'm new to all this but want to do whatever's best for him. I'm unsure whether I should go get a prescription for something myself from the vet, get a healthcare plan from the vet to cover the annual preventative medication, or purchase some sort of non-prescription preventative myself.

Thanks.

You can buy frontline online or at pet stores for ticks etc and also worming tablets. We have never wormed Max as he doesn't pick stuff up to eat when we are out and just gets the occasional tick and you only need to use frontline during spring & summer when the ticks are out. We've never had an issue with fleas with any of our springers.

duffer · Aug 1, 2023

ovduk78 said:
You can buy frontline online or at pet stores for ticks etc and also worming tablets. We have never wormed Max as he doesn't pick stuff up to eat when we are out and just gets the occasional tick and you only need to use frontline during spring & summer when the ticks are out. We've never had an issue with fleas with any of our springers.

Just to offer a slightly different opinion, we use Frontline too, but on a monthly basis all year round. It's a 'spot-on' treatment that you drip onto the back of their neck and the chemicals migrate across their skin, in theory killing fleas and ticks on contact.

Ticks are horrible things these days, and it's worth looking out for them on yourself as well as the dog. For humans, Lyme disease is the big concern, I'll let you Google it!

We worm using tablets prescribed by the vet. The worry here isn't the intestinal stuff as much as lungworm...

Lungworm in Dogs | Symptoms, Treatment and Prevention | Blue Cross

Dog owners all over the UK should be aware of lungworm, a potentially fatal condition. Dogs get lungworm by eating larvae found in infected snails, slugs or frogs. They can also accidentally eat infected tiny slugs if they are on a toy or their fur.

www.bluecross.org.uk

The problem with fleas, fwiw, is the hassle of getting them out of the house. The eggs can hang around for ages and then re-infest. Been there once a long time ago, actually from a dislodged birds nest in the eaves, would you believe. Also, in a renovated house I worked on decades ago. Bastard things, hideous and a right pain to eliminate.

Mcbean · Aug 1, 2023

If you walk out in wild grass make sure you check the dog down every time you come in as the ticks are easy to get off initially - you can get a little twister from any pet place to take them off if they are more attached

Flying Fokker · Aug 1, 2023

fernandopartridge said:
Anybody got any tips for how to deal with the little shit having a pop at the two resident cats?

Cats know how to biff the dog?

Earlsdon_Skyblue1 · Aug 5, 2023

Been avoiding this thread like the plague. My dog, Lucky, has been the best friend you could possibly imagine. At the beginning of December he was diagnosed with cancer and the vet told us he might not make it to Christmas. Since then we smashed his bucket list, best christmas, holidays, jaeger bombs (I know, I know), and just gave him as much love as possible. Sadly yesterday he passed away at the age of 14, having smashed the vets prediction by about 9 months.

To anyone wondering if they should get a dog, do it. I've never had so much love in my life. I'm absolutely heartbroken right now, but I wouldn't regret it all for a minute.

Just wanted to share that and hope it's OK.

napolimp · Aug 5, 2023

Earlsdon_Skyblue1 said:
Been avoiding this thread like the plague. My dog, Lucky, has been the best friend you could possibly imagine. At the beginning of December he was diagnosed with cancer and the vet told us he might not make it to Christmas. Since then we smashed his bucket list, best christmas, holidays, jaeger bombs (I know, I know), and just gave him as much love as possible. Sadly yesterday he passed away at the age of 14, having smashed the vets prediction by about 9 months.

To anyone wondering if they should get a dog, do it. I've never had so much love in my life. I'm absolutely heartbroken right now, but I wouldn't regret it all for a minute.

Just wanted to share that and hope it's OK.

I'm so sorry to hear that mate, I've had mine only a few weeks and I already couldn't imagine losing him.

pipkin73 · Aug 5, 2023

One thing to tell you all, my dog was ill and i could not afford the cost of medication but i found a way, BUT when she was ill again i asked the local pharmacy if they could order me the same medication.

They could, so i now save 30-40€ per vet visit just by ordering the same medication from my local pharmacy. Takes only 1 day to arrive out here.

Oh and it's cheaper to buy from the pharmacy than the Vets also.

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