Today is Giving Tuesday!

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2012 Holiday Gift Giving Guide for Green Dogs!

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People Giving Up Pets Because They Can’t Afford Them

January 5, 2012 at 5:40 pm

I’ve read several articles in the news about people giving up their pets because of the tight economy. More than 80 dogs have been dropped off at a single shelter in West Virginia. Other shelters have seen a sharp increase in people dropping off pets because they can no longer afford them. And, because of the economic scares, fewer people are adopting pets.

It’s hard to understand giving up a family pet because money’s tight. I’d have to be missing some meals before I could give up my fur-kids.  I know there are situations in which the pet truly cannot remain with its owners, and for them I am deeply sorry. Knowing that adult pets are far more difficult to find homes for - and many of them are put down at shelters - I hope that if there’s no money for pet food, there’s also no money for cell phones, cable television, clothes, bottled water, movies and sweets. If there’s money for that stuff, there’s money for your dog.

The decisions we make in the emotional moments after losing a job or filing for bankruptcy are sometimes life-and-death decisions for our pets, who have no say in the decision making process.

Let’s not toss them aside too quickly.

Before you drop your dog off at a shelter, please think about what it really costs to keep your dog. If you already have a leash, collar and crate, what does it really cost? For a healthy dog, it only costs food and heartworm/flea medication. There may be areas in which you can save money that are often overlooked. Do you mow your own lawn? Do you have bottled water delivery? Can you reduce your cable/satellite or Internet service package? How often do you go to Starbucks?

In other words, are the discretionary things you spend your money on worth your dog’s life?

Our dogs give so much, and they don’t ask for much in return. Let’s at least provide a safe home for them with the people they love.

Entry filed under: In the News. Tags: afford, budget, can't, dogs, drop off, economy, expensive, give up, no longer, owners, pets, shelter, surrender, tight.

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People Giving Up Pets Because They Can’t Afford Them

January 5, 2012 at 5:40 pm

I’ve read several articles in the news about people giving up their pets because of the tight economy. More than 80 dogs have been dropped off at a single shelter in West Virginia. Other shelters have seen a sharp increase in people dropping off pets because they can no longer afford them. And, because of the economic scares, fewer people are adopting pets.

It’s hard to understand giving up a family pet because money’s tight. I’d have to be missing some meals before I could give up my fur-kids.  I know there are situations in which the pet truly cannot remain with its owners, and for them I am deeply sorry. Knowing that adult pets are far more difficult to find homes for - and many of them are put down at shelters - I hope that if there’s no money for pet food, there’s also no money for cell phones, cable television, clothes, bottled water, movies and sweets. If there’s money for that stuff, there’s money for your dog.

The decisions we make in the emotional moments after losing a job or filing for bankruptcy are sometimes life-and-death decisions for our pets, who have no say in the decision making process.

Let’s not toss them aside too quickly.

Before you drop your dog off at a shelter, please think about what it really costs to keep your dog. If you already have a leash, collar and crate, what does it really cost? For a healthy dog, it only costs food and heartworm/flea medication. There may be areas in which you can save money that are often overlooked. Do you mow your own lawn? Do you have bottled water delivery? Can you reduce your cable/satellite or Internet service package? How often do you go to Starbucks?

In other words, are the discretionary things you spend your money on worth your dog’s life?

Our dogs give so much, and they don’t ask for much in return. Let’s at least provide a safe home for them with the people they love.

Be the first to like this post.Entry filed under: In the News. Tags: afford, budget, can't, dogs, drop off, economy, expensive, give up, no longer, owners, pets, shelter, surrender, tight.

View the original article here

People Giving Up Pets Because They Can’t Afford Them

January 5, 2012 at 5:40 pm

I’ve read several articles in the news about people giving up their pets because of the tight economy. More than 80 dogs have been dropped off at a single shelter in West Virginia. Other shelters have seen a sharp increase in people dropping off pets because they can no longer afford them. And, because of the economic scares, fewer people are adopting pets.

It’s hard to understand giving up a family pet because money’s tight. I’d have to be missing some meals before I could give up my fur-kids.  I know there are situations in which the pet truly cannot remain with its owners, and for them I am deeply sorry. Knowing that adult pets are far more difficult to find homes for - and many of them are put down at shelters - I hope that if there’s no money for pet food, there’s also no money for cell phones, cable television, clothes, bottled water, movies and sweets. If there’s money for that stuff, there’s money for your dog.

The decisions we make in the emotional moments after losing a job or filing for bankruptcy are sometimes life-and-death decisions for our pets, who have no say in the decision making process.

Let’s not toss them aside too quickly.

Before you drop your dog off at a shelter, please think about what it really costs to keep your dog. If you already have a leash, collar and crate, what does it really cost? For a healthy dog, it only costs food and heartworm/flea medication. There may be areas in which you can save money that are often overlooked. Do you mow your own lawn? Do you have bottled water delivery? Can you reduce your cable/satellite or Internet service package? How often do you go to Starbucks?

In other words, are the discretionary things you spend your money on worth your dog’s life?

Our dogs give so much, and they don’t ask for much in return. Let’s at least provide a safe home for them with the people they love.

Be the first to like this post.Entry filed under: In the News. Tags: afford, budget, can't, dogs, drop off, economy, expensive, give up, no longer, owners, pets, shelter, surrender, tight.

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Giving pet meds requires a system, a steady hand and a good memory

A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Tony Johnson wrote about medication malfunctions in the ER. Of course, it doesn’t just happen there. Pet owners who give lots of medications often worry that they’ll make a similar mistake. At least I do. I don’t have to calculate dosages, thank goodness, because that would be a disaster, but I hand out multiple medications to two dogs twice a day. I have a system to make sure it gets done right.

First, the pharmacy helps by putting different-colored bands on each dog’s medication bottles. Bella is purple and Twyla is orange. Bottles without bands have a B or a T written on the lid with a Sharpie, and the name on the label is circled. (Partly this is so any pet sitters can easily find the correct bottle.) But I discovered recently that the band system has opportunities for mix-ups. I was walking out of Target last week with a new bottle of enalapril for Twyla when I noticed they had put a purple band on it. I wanted to go back and demand that they change it, but Jerry persuaded me that he could just put the old band on the new bottle. Luckily, they both take the same pills, just different amounts, but it could have been a more serious error if that weren’t the case and I hadn’t noticed it.

We keep all the pill bottles in a large zippered bag. At meal times, I pull out all of Bella’s bottles and put them to the left of the bag, Twyla’s to the right. Bella usually gets her meds first. After I look at the label, remove the appropriate number of pills from each bottle, and chop them up as needed, the bottle goes back in the bag. I give her the Vetmedin first because it’s chewable and she’ll eat it out of hand. Everything else (four additional pills in the morning, two in the evening) is wrapped in a bit of Pill Pocket, just enough to surround the pills. I think about which dog is getting this batch of pills, look at that dog, and then give the treat.

I sometimes think I’m being a bit too cautious, but in the past Jerry and I have both given or almost given the wrong meds to one of the dogs. Their prescriptions are similar, so it wouldn’t be a fatal error or even a serious one, but it does concern me that it could happen. Then Twyla gets her two pills while Bella circles me like a shark, waiting for the food to be set down.

I used to put the pills and liquid medications in with their food, but I’ve stopped doing that because they all run around licking each other’s empty bowls. I don’t want Harper to accidentally slurp up some sildenafil or to swallow a pill left behind.

Bella and Twyla’s meds are given with meals, so it’s easy to remember them, but when Darcy was taking medication she got it several times a day. We scheduled medication times on my now-defunct PDA and an alarm would go off when they were due.

That reminds me–Bella still needs her eye drops tonight.

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The squeeze: Drug pricing giving vet med a makeover

Veterinarians — especially the younger ones — are struggling financially, and they’re not planning to ever live much more lavishly, because they know the world is changing around them.

The old model of a veterinary hospital as a locally owned small business is under pressure from all sides. And while that’s definitely not good for young veterinarians, it may not be all that good for pet-owners either, even if the transition model — lower-priced drug options outside the veterinary hospital and the cost of veterinary service still being shifted to the old-school in-house pharmacy– means lower overall costs for pet healthcare now.

The change in where you buy medication is but one of the earliest and, so far, the biggest waves to challenge the how veterinarians traditionally do business. But for a generation of younger veterinarians already drowning in educational debt, that wave looks like the beginning of a tsunami.

Or an invasion.  By barbarians, no less.

“It’s a provocative title,” acknowledged Dr. Lowell Ackerman, giving the Pfizer-sponsored dawn lecture, “Barbarians at the Gate: Managing the Veterinary Pharmacy in a Time of Extreme Outside Competition,” at the North American Veterinary Conference here in Orlando. (Note: Pfizer is a PetConnection.com sponsor.)

In truth, the barbarians are already inside the gate, and most of the couple hundred veterinarians in attendance knew it well before Dr. Ackerman started speaking.

What they were there to learn were the terms of surrender.

“It’s not a sustainable business model to sell products at substantially higher prices than elsewhere,” said Ackerman, noting that any attempt to defend higher prices to customers isn’t going to end well. And in fact, he argued, it’s a lost cause:  Clients who already take their drug purchases elsewhere aren’t coming back to make those purchases, he said, and those who haven’t yet changed their drug-buying habits need a reason to stay.

There were some mild suggestions for counter-insurgency: Veterinarians can choose name-brand medications specifically labeled for veterinary use over human generic equivalents. While human pharmacies can sell veterinary medications, few choose to, at least so far, keeping the business  mostly in house.  But that isn’t expected to remain the situation for long, said Ackerman, with the big-box chain Target already experimenting with selling veterinary-labeled medications. Ackerman also noted that veterinarians can choose injectible medications when warranted, a shot being something that won’t be sold outside the practice.

But the overarching message wasn’t one of resistance, but change. Veterinarians will need to charge closer to what their services really cost, since they can no longer shift costs to their pharmacy, and they will need to make sure pet-owners are getting good value for those services. Convenience — the ability to buy a pet’s medication on the spot — is one measure of value, but the price competition limits it: $5 vs. $25-40 for the same prescription of a human generic is going to have all but the most time-stressed customer thinking of going elsewhere. But if veterinarians add in the convenience of Web-based refills, auto-reminders and home delivery through a hospital’s website, Ackerman said, the balance may tip in their favor. And he again stressed the need for better service from veterinarians, who must, after all, be both doctor and pharmacist to their patients, with the responsibilities of both something no high-volume, deep discount pharmacy is willing or able to take on.

Still, what the changes mean in the long run is still but an educated guess as the global economy reshapes itself and the big box players get bigger and more powerful.  I tell you this, though, based on the perspective of a couple decades of covering the pet-care field: If I had a child interested in being a veterinarian, I’d be tempted to suggest she follow her heart into something that she can make a better living at, like … oh …  getting a Ph.D. in medieval English literature.

This story, as they say in the news biz, is still developing. Stay tuned.

***

Alarming conference development: I came back to the room after it was cleaned and found a massive tick on the bathroom mirror (picture above). At first glance, I thought it was some kind of warning about bed bugs from the Marriott management, but then I realized the hotel had been paid to have housekeeping staff put the tick ad in my hotel bathroom. The lone star tick may well be on the move (and in fact, all ticks are, per a lecture at the AVMA conference last summer), but the one place I don’t want any ticks inserted is in a room I’ve paid for expecting privacy. Advertising FAIL.

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