Last fall, our cat had oral surgery. It was expensive and (I'm assuming) unpleasant for the cat, but we were placed in the situation of not wanting to be bad kitty parents. Plus we were told that with the cleaning and the removal of the problem tooth, we could be forestalling future dental problems. Imagine my chagrin when at the last checkup the doctor found another potentially problematic tooth. At the time I told him that it didn't seem to be causing her any problems and he agreed to let it go for a few months to see if it got worse.
I got the call the other day that it was time to go see the vet again and have the tooth checked out. So I dutifully made the appointment and grumbled to myself. After we hit the deer, I started thinking about it again. What was I going to do if the doctor decided that more oral surgery was needed? Was I going to go into debt again, as we did last year to pay for it?
Today, I called and canceled the appointment.
Frankly, if we still haven't gotten Chip the dental treatment that he needs, I can't justify it for the cat. I love the cat, and she is a dear part of our family. We paid (more than I want to admit) to bring her here from the Czech Republic. But I just can't see ranking her mouth as a higher priority than that of my life partner.
I am really glad that continual research is being done to improve the lives of our pets, but if I may say so without being thought a heartless bitch, it sometimes seems a little out of hand. In order to be a "good" American pet owner, I'm expected to shell out for name-brand food, yearly or even twice yearly vet trips (now called "well-pet visits"), regular tooth brushing, and possibly a Halloween costume. For a cat. When we were in the Czech Republic, it seemed like the attitude toward companion animals was a little more sensible. The Czechs love their pets--especially the dogs--but even the vets look at you askance if you start to veer into the realm of people treatment for your pets.
While we were in Prague, we had a cat who had a genetic disorder that caused him to be sick more or less every time he ate from the time he was about a year old. It took us many visits and diagnostics to figure out what was wrong, and the whole time we were demanding the treatments, I'm pretty sure the vets thought we were the craziest Americans ever. The day we did the ultrasound and the X-ray, they presented us the bill very apologetically and refused to charge us for the ultrasound on the grounds that it was just too expensive. Guess what would never happen here in a million years. We went in for IVs, had a pic-line put in, bought special liver food by the case, the whole nine yards. We could have gone for surgery, but the vet convinced us that his chances were slim in any case. There was no pressure for extraordinary measures, and when he started to really decline, they very gently told us that it was time to let him go.
I'm glad that we were able to do as much as we were--the fact that vet costs were about a tenth of what they are here made that easier--but I appreciated that the vets we had were always realistic and common-sense. I'm not saying in any way that U.S. vets lack common sense--I think they are just responding to what the market demands--but I do think that maybe we as pet lovers do.
When children are dying from lack of proper dental hygiene, is it even ethical for me to spend hundreds of dollars getting my cat's teeth cleaned? I don't know. I just know that for now, I'm resigning myself to being a bad kitty mommy.