$118 - the cost of owning a dog..

[Blue]

er.. just for today, that is. Little bit of back history. Dukie, the family yorkie has had a recurring staph infection for quite a few months now.

Our regular vet kept prescribing clamox or something similar.. an antibodic, anyway. We tried three rounds of this, ten days each. We also had some medicated shampoo.. total cost, including actual office visits? $300.

Now after this third time, the vet tried to prescribe clamox AGAIN.. I told her no way, considering we've already tried it thrice. So.. she refers me to a canine skin specialist. Yes, that's right, a canine skin specialist. I don't even go to a dermatologist myself.. but hell, my dog gets to.

His cost? $65 for half an hour.. more than $2 a minute, nice. Prescribed a different sort of antibodic - this one kills the bacteria, instead of just weakens it. Now I just wonder why the freak my regular vet couldn't do that?!  That stuff only cost around $13 for a 3-week supply, luckily.. >P And then $40 for frontline plus to rule out any flea irritation/never see a tapeworm again.

.. just a bit of ranting about the cost of a staph infection and slightly inept vets. Oh and did I mention driving around for 50 mins before finally finding the vet office of the new vet? An office that happened to be located just 15 mins away and in a building I pass by absently every week? Yea. yahoomaps suck. This vet building was super nice however. Lovely architecture.. Completely surprised me since it was not like the typical vet office. It was even clustered with a variety of hospitals - human ones, that is.