How You Can Make Your Pointer’s Vet Bills More Affordable

We all love and enjoy our dogs, and so we should. But owning a dog carries certain responsibilities, and making sure our dogs receive the veterinary care they need is one of the big ones.

Yes, most people make sure their Pointers get the basics – an annual exam, shots, heartworm preventives, worming and so forth. It all adds up, though, and owning a dog can mean several hundred dollars a year in vet bills. And that’s just for the routine stuff.

But what would happen if your Pointer gets sick or needs treatment for some other health condition, like joint problems or something similar? Some types of treatment can be extremely expensive. Would you be able to afford it?

Unfortunately, I had the “opportunity” to find out the answer not too long ago. My Pointer is an older dog, and he needed some dental work. You wouldn’t believe how much that can cost! Even a simple teeth cleaning for a dog can run more than a couple of hundred dollars, and my dog needed a lot more than that. You can imagine the bills I would have faced.

Fortunately, I had signed up for pet insurance a few months earlier. I have to pay a monthly premium, and certain types of treatments aren’t covered, but the insurance company pays a big percentage of all the other vet bills.

After my dog’s teeth were cleaned and fixed, my vet showed me what he would have charged if I hadn’t had this insurance. Well, thank goodness I did! Instead of paying almost $800, my out-of-pocket expense was only $110! Saving that much more than made up for the monthly premiums I pay. I figure that if there are more vet bills this year, I’ll save even more by having pet health insurance.