What is a dog's life worth? Pet parents share the moment they had to decide

• Three dog owners remember the vet bills that made them decide what their pet's life is worth.
• Some needed emergency treatment, while others had chronic illness.
• All three owners had to take on debt to pay for their dog's care.

Vet visits are only getting more expensive.

A recent survey from Healthy Paws Pet Insurance and Money.com found routine expenses cost pet parents, on average, over $4,000 each year. That number rises if your pet has a chronic illness, and emergency vet costs push it higher still.

At that price point, it's not uncommon to have to choose between spending money you don't have and not spending at all, putting your loved one's health at risk.

We spoke to three dog owners about their most overwhelming vet bills. None of them had pet insurance at the time. Below, they explain how they paid for the care their pets needed.

'We were approaching maxing out my personal credit card.'

Kait Sanchez, 31, lives just outside of Philadelphia with their dog, Bean.

In the summer of 2024, Bean was having really intense GI problems. We were at the vet a lot of the time. We took her to the actual Penn Vet Hospital at some point because it was so bad.

We barely got any answers each of these times we took her to the vet. They were like, "We ran all these really expensive tests and we don't know what's wrong with her."

This was when Haley, my spouse, was working in D.C. and coming home on the weekends. That was a one-year fellowship. When Haley came back, Bean started getting better. We realized that, oh, we spent several thousand dollars trying to treat what was basically the effects of extreme separation anxiety.

The first time it happened, I was like, "OK, well, I can put it on my credit card. It's an emergency." By the end of all these different vet visits, we were approaching maxing out my personal credit card. And I had also gotten a credit card just for Bean, which I call Bean's credit card. We used whatever the maximum that we were allowed to use for that.

To be honest, we still haven't worked it out. My personal credit card is at the maximum still right now. Bean's credit card is maybe halfway paid off.

We're finally at the point of paying down her credit card a little bit, and also just getting a little bit more settled in our jobs, where we're like, OK, maybe we can finally take her to get her teeth cleaned again. That sapped us so much that we haven't been able to keep up with her regular stuff. That also sucks.

'OK, that will be $900.'

Kelly McKew, 36, lives in Baltimore with her dog, Capone.

I've had Cap for nine years this past March, and I got him as a rescue at 3-ish years old. I had pet insurance for probably a year and a half, maybe two years. But I decided it wasn't worth it anymore for the amount I was paying per month — which I fully regret at this time.

Cap started to have these issues where his toenails started frying and fraying off, and his nose was cracking and was very red. Of course, I took him to the vet.

My primary vet was like, "Hey, I don't really know this, but I looked it up and it's probably a form of lupus for dogs." Which is very indicative of my very expensive junkyard dog.

I had to take him to a veterinary dermatologist, and they did a full workup. My primary vet runs through all of the costs associated and gives me options. And then I went to the vet dermatologist, she took him, did all the tests, and then came back and was like, "OK, that will be $900."

The big bill went on a credit card. I don't know how long it took to pay off, because at some point I don't think of the credit card bill as individual charges. I think I have definitely paid it off since now, because that was, like, three years ago.

The lupus is chronic, and I'm always having to take care of that. But all those treatments felt very accessible and not out of where I would be willing to go. It was like, get a human grade steroid from CVS and rub it on his nose, and purchase those medications.

Listen, I pay for my own prescriptions and they're expensive — more than his. So I felt like that was a fine trade-off.

'This surgery would have been in excess of $8,000 to $10,000'

Thomas Dock, 61, lives in Indianapolis with his dogs: Orion Indy (2017 - 2025), Nike Victoria, Andromeda Eleven, and Lord Kratos.

In February of 2021, my wife and I noticed that Orion was waking up at least once every night with some regurgitation. I work in the veterinary field, so I was like, "Well, he needs something to calm his stomach down." For about two or three weeks, we didn't think much about it.

I came home from work on a Friday evening and my wife told me, "I think I'm worried about him. He's been lethargic today. He's really not even wanting to take treats," which for Orion was very, very odd. And so at that time, I knew that probably something was wrong.

I went ahead and took him into one of our emergency hospitals. It ended up that he had some free fluid in his abdomen, which was not supposed to be there. His stomach actually had a hole in it. That was causing him to be very septic. So he went into emergency surgery that night, at three in the morning.

We're always worried about our pets; we're worried about their well-being. Orion was only four, so I did not want him to go anywhere, obviously. But I was worried because, at that point in time, I did not have the means to cover a very expensive surgery.

Without my discount, this surgery would have been in excess of $8,000 to $10,000. My discount was between 20% and 30%. I think that surgery took me a little bit over a year to get paid off.

I did not have pet insurance at the time. The funny part of that story is I didn't get pet insurance for Orion; I got it for another dog. And Orion needed two more surgeries because he kept eating things that he should not have. In hindsight, I wish I would have gotten it for him, especially with him being an English Mastiff.

The big thing that I teach my employees is to have some sort of game plan, whether it's pet insurance, CareCredit … there's a lot of things out there. You can even start a savings account for your pet or have a separate credit card for them. But you've got to have a game plan, because our pets are curious — there's so many things that can happen to them.

Created by the Commerce Team in partnership with Healthy Paws Pet Insurance.

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