Fix Your Pet, Empty Your Wallet

Pets are wonderful creatures. I expounded on their virtues on a guest post I did over on Kristy K. James' blog. And I'm wholeheartedly advocate getting your pets fixed. However, I've discovered a snag to what seems like an easy solution to controlling the excess of pets in shelters and on the streets.

You see, now that spring is just around the corner, our lovely little barn kittens from last year are getting a bit, shall we say "frisky"? I'm many of you remember them from previous posts, especially the adorable munchkin Itty Bitty. Itty Bitty is about half the size of her siblings, but alas, she is just as mature as them otherwise. We need to get her fixed to avoid any problems an unwanted pregnancy might have.

This seemingly simple task is becoming much more complicated than I thought it would be. While the vets that visit us on the farm are awesome, it would seem that experiences with small pet doctors around the area are less than pleasant. I've heard numerous complaints that someone took their pet in for one thing and ended up paying for much, much more that they did not authorize the vet to do. I ran into this problem once when I was in Florida. I took my cat in for what I thought would be something simple and ended up paying almost $300. I don't know about you, but that's a lot of money. Then they told me to bring her in for a follow up visit and that I wouldn't have to pay for it. They tried to charge me another $30.

So I'm beginning to understand one aspect to why people don't get their pets fixed. It should be an easy, fairly inexpensive procedure. But vets are sheisty and tack on a ton of other "well, they needed this" things to push up the bill. I'm looking for a program to help with Itty Bitty, but in the meantime, I guess we'll just have to wait and hope nothing happens, because while I adore her, I'm not spending $300 on her.

Has anyone else experienced a sheisty vet trying to pull one over on you? Do you have any tips on how to get the vet to do just what you want them to do without losing an arm and a leg?

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