Health Insurance for Your Dog

The word insurance is one of those words that just makes you cringe. Next to putting gas in your car it seems like insurance is the biggest expense you have.  There is so much that you need! You need to keep insurance on your car (it would have been really nice if somebody would have told how big a financial drain that was going to be), if you own a home you pay homeowners insurance, if you rent an apartment you have renters insurance, you struggle with the ever soaring cost of health care insurance, and if you are a really responsible family member you have life insurance. And now you find you are hearing that you should consider purchasing a health insurance plan for your pet.
  
You love your dog, he/she's more then a pet, she's a valued member of your family and probably your best friend. But health insurance? You can barely afford to put food on your table how are you supposed to be able to afford to insure your pet. Besides he's just a mutt, dog health care insurance is for fancy purebred show dogs, not your rescue pet.
  
The shoestring you’re probably living on is the very reason you might want to consider putting pet health insurance on your pet. The average dog owner takes their pet dog to the veterinarian approximately 2.3 times a year and it will cost you approximately three hundred dollars per year.  My guess is that each time you pay the vet bill your budget is screaming for mercy.
  
What happens if your dog contracts a disease, or gets hurt? It doesn't take much to rack up some pretty serious vet bills. What if you have to leave town and can't take your dog with you? Can you really afford to leave your dog at a boarding kennel? You already know how much you have to pay for your prescriptions, do you really think that a dog prescription is going to be any cheaper. Lucy's last visit was several hundred dollars for a urinary track infection. I'm glad we had pet health-care coverage.

Your dog is your best friend and a treasured member of your family could you really live with yourself if you had to put him to sleep just because you couldn't afford his vet bill.
  
It is possible to get health care insurance for your dog for approximately twenty dollars a month. While it might not cover all of your dogs vet care needs, it could help!  If you shop around and read each plan carefully you should even be able to find a pet health-care plan that will help pay for your routine vet visits. Some pet insurance plans will even cover some boarding expenses.

Some questions you should ask the pet health insurance company you are considering buying a pet health care policy from is whether or not your vet accepts that particular type of insurance, if there is a cap on treatments, how much is your deductible, and how will they handle any pre-existing conditions your dog might have.







If you have taken on the joy of having a pet, why not pony up and be responsible enough to provide the care your pet truly deserves?  Get pet insurance...

“All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.” –Samuel Butler

Mr. Butler must have been a great observer of nature. Or, he must have understood the nature of dogs. One thing I can honestly say is our dog Lucy does understand the concept of enjoying life.
Currently Terri and I are spending more time outdoors enjoying the pool. Lucy, who is not a great swimmer, makes a game of chasing us while we swim. She’ll run or pace back and forth on the deck as we swim or float from one end to the other. She seems to really enjoy the activity. At other times she’ll just sit and watch from the comfort of some shady spot near the pool in the backyard.

I now must relay a story to you… In my attempt to get Lucy more involved in our activities I have been trying to teach her to swim. Lucy will not enter the pool unless I carry her in and then to remain there, I must assist her by supplying support while she is in the water. She will not attempt to swim on her own! This holds true even when we are out on hiking trips and there is a lake nearby, she simply will not attempt to swim.

Well, the other day Lucy was really interested in getting in the water so I retrieved her and brought her in the pool. I’m trying to make her understand that the steps are safe for her as the water is not above her chest level. The first introduction to the water went fine. I carried her in and then sat her on the steps of the pool. Great, she sat there for a moment and then got out of the pool on her own. A few moments later she was back at the side of the pool as if asking to get back in. So, I got out of pool lifted her up to carry her into the pool. We entered into the pool just fine but once I reach the floor of the pool I lost my footing and slipped. I didn’t drop Lucy put she thought I was going too! Lucy demonstrated to me that she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself in the water. It’s as if she could walk on water with the way she got out of the pool.

So what’s the moral of the story? I guess it’s this, if a dog wants to swim it can… Even though Boxers aren’t necessarily naturally attracted to the water, they can swim when they have to! Don’t force the issue, they’ll swim if they have to and swim with a passion. The best thing you can do for them is be encouraging and perhaps supply them with a floatation device such as a dog specific life preserver… A dog, especially a Boxer knows how to make their own fun, don’t press the issue!