By Dave
Being in the animal field for several years, I understand the importance of proper care. Without the right care for certain ailments like feline infectious peritonitis, the condition could be absolutely fatal. People with no knowledge of treatment might have no idea how to manage the illness or lack the right medicine to do it at home. Furthermore, poor decisions could worsen these conditions such as using human medications. Immune suppression that often accompanies common diseases can cause various problems – one of which that can incur a secondary bacterial infection.
It is obvious that medical care in certain situations is recommended. But I want to open up a new topic of discussion that has had me thinking the last few months and eating me up for not offering my opinion on it. It is a controversial one but a topic that I feel we must cover. This topic is about the need of veterinary care for cats and how I believe that some techs and vets are too religious about veterinary care. It has always been my belief that being too strict about veterinary care has more bad outcomes than good and worsens the overall health of the animals in question. The second best care can be better than the gold standard if people comply better with one than the other.
First I really want to explain my background a little. Being born in a town that has a lot of poor people and is in economic collapse, I am not so quick to recommend a vet for simple things. I remember when I was slightly younger and would find myself walking into a friend’s houses that had cracked doors, windows, and the floor somewhat caving in (although it never did). They continued to live this way for ten years and to my knowledge still do. This was about 50% of the neighborhood I lived in at this time. What do you think the chance is that they would listen to me about taking an animal to the vet?
My friends would often have a five or six cats (cats were more common than dogs) that would occasionally have problems such as upper respiratory, worms, diarrhea, or would get an injury as a result of vehicles, mean children or other. And I would help birth the kittens and find them homes when they did happen to have a pregnant female. I spent hours upon hours learning to help these cats and dogs. These people would probably never be in the right position to ever take an animal to the vet and probing would only lead to me being pushed away. Then, who really suffers? Is advice really such a bad thing in situations like this?
I have learned what it truly means to be resourceful and able to make a good situation out of a bad one or make gold out of bronze, so to speak. It takes skill and understanding, knowledge and respect. I was saving countless kittens and cats often on a monthly budget of $30-50. There is a lot of medications out there and techniques that can save animals without much cost, with the right training. For instance. I often treated cats with off-label Ivamec which takes care of round worms and mites (two very common parasites) that was about 5 cents per cat. This is just one example as an alternative to a $30-50 vet visit to take care of both. That is a lot of money saved once you talk about dozens of cats that I have saved. I have lost a couple of cats/kittens in my entire lifetime and if I listened to these vet techs and took every cat to a vet every time this happened, I would honestly be broke and would have to give up this secondary lifesaving initiative.
When I visit Facebook pages or I see comments in response to a pet question, the number one comment from techs is along the lines of “vet,now” or “veterinarian now”. If the question was in regards to vomiting and diarrhea, I would agree. Vomiting and diarrhea together can quickly lead to dehydration and death. If it is about upper respiratory, fleas or worms, ear mites or any other basic problem, I am not so quick to agree on a vet immediately. If not, however, a vet is a consideration especially if fatty liver, dehydration or death could be the end result.
Also keep in mind that the owner has already heard that they should see a vet probably twenty times by now. If they didn’t listen then, chances are they won’t listen now. In a ideal world, every animal owner would see a vet for their animal problems. But what do you do when you know without a shadow of a doubt, they won’t go to one? Do you offer advice or do you let the animal continue to suffer?
Or what do you do if an animal ends up in your care and the cost is beyond your monthly budget. Do you allow the animal to die, euthanize it or give the animal a chance to shine and survive using the second best care you can provide?
The last point I want to add is the constant comparison of vet care to human care. While this can be a good point, it can be quickly demolished when you take into account that a lot of children have health care of some sort when the parent is on low income. Or at least that is the case in my town. If there was a very cheap plan for animals I am sure people would also comply.
I look forward to reading the response to this very relevant and debate raising topic.
This was a very informative comment. Thanks. Sometimes, we feel we just must do something…anything. And in the end our little friends are going to leave us anyway. It is important to not let them needlessly suffer, but sometimes even that is hard to know. It is hard for us to accept that our pets are wiser about life and death. They don’t worry about it.
I’d listen to a wise retired nurse any day.
Pushing it crudely, on the one hand we have ignorant cat owners who don’t take their cats to the vet often or quickly enough and on the other hand we have some greedy veterinarians. These 2 factors have a negative impact upon cat welfare.
Thankfully here in nzl its not compulsory though i have noticed that the vet always sends reminder notices esp when missed vaccinations.
Great essay, Dave.
Would there were someone like you out here in this wilderness. But neither is there no Dave around, there’s no sliding scale spay-neuter clinic within a hundred miles. Since there’s nothing but forest, ocean and farmland down here, the farms (horse, dairy and cattle ranches) have multitudes of barn cats the ‘owners’ usually doctor themselves, as the vets are surprisingly willing to sell them vaccines, etc. Their cabinets look like miniature pharmacies with shelves of clippers, bandages, flea medicines, hypodermic syringes, multiple antiseptics and pain relievers, ear-mite and worming remedies, etc. These farmers have learned to doctor their cats and dogs themselves. They couldn’t afford vets with any great frequency, as the smallest menagerie I can think of, offhand, includes six dogs and @ fourteen cats. Are all these animals well fed? Of course not. They survive on kibbles, and what rodents and birds they can hunt in the warmer seasons of the year.
As for veterinarians in general, though, I have to agree with Marc’s dusky views on the industry. I’m thinking, in particular, of a four-pound Chihuahua my mother had. He’d been suffering from a weeks-long attack, origin unknown, of diarrhea, and the visits to the vet were costing my mother immense fees for an array of non-remedies.Poor little Abe’s bottom was so inflamed and eroded, he yelped in pain. Finally, the vet told my mother to give the dog eyedroppers of black coffee. Which hardly sounded promising. Well, she finally telephoned the breeder, an elderly woman who lived in this ‘remodeled’ chicken house and raised these gorgeous blue-ribbon dogs.And she said to give Abe a quarter tablet of — I forget – (this was years ago) but think it was a pill called (will spell this phonetically)’Teh-NAB-you-lin.’ So that’s what Mom did, and pill dried up the poor little dog in two hours! He was overjoyed! Was the vet overjoyed too? No. He was massively offended, and never forgave my mother.
From dogs back to cats, here is my opinion, for whatever it’s worth. Have you a cat who’s getting on in years? If you have, stroke him lightly on the back, and if you feel a faint spinal protrusion, it’s the beginning of the end. It’s the approach of what the English writer, Llewellyn Powys, called ‘Whoreson Death.’ When you feel that barely palpable protrusion, your fur-child is crossing the threshold that opens onto the downward path. Meaning, the time has come for you to withdraw a few thousand dollars out of your bank and ignite them with a match. From which you can tell I have no faith in vets in treating an older animal – though of course they try their best
The final ten months of my boy’s life cost slightly under $4,000, and there wasn’t a thing that would have saved him. My cousin, an oncologist who died young of cancer,said his professors drummed into him and his fellow students the folly of imagining they could save many lives when a patient was drifting into middle age. A veterinarian can mend broken bones, clean or pull teeth, do a few things for a young cat. But when a cat has lived for years, the steroids and antibiotic injections, the pills and drops are useless. Which won’t stop the vet from gutting your savings. They have no qualms in telling you they don’t know what’s wrong — that your cat’s full-panel lab tests showed he was in near-perfect health. They performed these tests on both of my cats, and the findings couldn’t have been more impressive. Only thing was, both dying. Which doesn’t matter to the parent, who’ll throw away his last dime in trying to save them. When things have reached that pass, of course, doctoring cats at home is out of the question. But neither will electrolyte fluid, pills, injections, more blood tests and urinalyses, x-rays, appetite stimulant pills, hundreds of cans of gourmet cat food, minced meats and livers and seafood and everything else you can conceive of will save their lives. You’ve torched your money. Nevertheless, instead of quitting, you’ll shop around. Which sounds crass, but price-comparing will help to some degree, and won’t hurt your cats. Whatever the fees are in other areas, the vets down here were equally competent, far as I could tell – the only difference being one charged $153.00 to PTS one beloved cat – and the other, half a mile down the road, $48.00. Those differences in price pertained to nearly everything else they could offer you in your losing battle to save your dying boy and girl. (Incidentally, I didn’t force them to keep going – they enjoyed a fair state of health until the near end.)
As for doctoring your kids at home, though, I admire you for your success in treating those cats over the years. As for home treatment, by the way — OMG — my kids were housecats except when they were out on their sun-porch. And yet, last summer, they were attacked by ear mites. Two visits to the least expensive clinic down here cost $50.00 the first time and $35.00 the second, and the medicine didn’t work. After their ‘treatments,’ the poor cats were still suffering. Since my boy was fragile I was afraid to squirt the miticide (sp) into his ears a week later — nor was it effective when the vet did it the first time around. So I used an eyedropper, every five days, of organic olive oil, which smothered the mites.
Be that as it may, you’re way ahead when you can provide some medical care to your companion animals.I wish I’d had one-tenth of your skills – and that goes for Dee – but I had next to none. Anyhow, thank you for an informative essay.