[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by aggieAXO

If the owner can't or is unwilling to pay then you have to make a decision-are you going to treat for free, send them home and let the pet suffer or euthanize? The economy sucks and unfortunately animals are a luxury to many people. Just this week I had a lady complaining about an extra 5$ on her bill and how she needed to get a manicure
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Yep. What you have in bold is what I struggled with. I'm getting better, though. It still aggravates me when they complain about the costs to run tests to see what's wrong. "Oh, that's too high. Why can't you tell me what's wrong?" The words of one my clients who hadn't taken his dog to see a vet in years. The dog was limping, 7 years old, and his body was covered with what looked like tumors, to me. The dog was coughing, and he thought it was kennel cough. Not seeing a vet in 7 years? That "kennel cough" could be anything. Probably heartworms. Long story short, I didn't run the tests, because he didn't want to pay for it. I see this a lot, and I still struggle with it, at times.

eta: Keep us posted (in the random thread) on that patient.