In this life only love is for free vet fees and pet

READERS HAVE been commenting on last week’s column, when I wrote about a woman who had adopted a dog from a rescuer. The dog was completely healthy, neutered and vaccinated. Then, a year later, she became angry when (she said) the rescuer refused to cover the costs of the annual vaccination as well as treatment for a skin problem that the dog had just picked up.

The readers’ comments range from “What a cheapskate that woman is!” to “Why would the rescuer ever let a person like that adopt a dog?”

In fact, the mystery deepens. When I phoned the rescuer to hear her side of the story, she insisted that she’d never ever spoken to anyone who wanted her to pay for medical treatment for a dog that she had rescued and then adopted out.

The woman’s complaints don’t make any sense at all to the rescuer or to me either. If it was a question of money, the BMA has animal clinics around the city that offer vaccinations for free. Some temples provide free services as well.

If the dog was too large for the woman to transport easily to a clinic, the rescuer would gladly have helped.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the woman’s phone number, and I can’t remember her name. It’s not that we want to find out who she is so that we can verbally abuse her the way she did me, but we do want to make sure that the dog is all right, if indeed there really is a dog involved.

Actually, I had another point to make when I wrote about this woman.

I was extremely surprised that the woman would be so upset about paying for her dog’s annual vaccinations.

It’s a given. If you take care of pets properly, they cost money. These expenses add up to much more than food. Some requirements, such as vaccinations, can be free, but health care, cleaning and bathing products for the animal, not to mention the unforeseen accident, can eat into your pocketbook.

As your pet grows older, health-care expenses rise. At one time, for example, my one-eyed cat Angel simply needed food, my companionship and a place to sleep.

Now that she’s 16 or 17 years old, arthritis has started to affect her hips and back legs, and she needs a daily supplement to slow the progress of this terrible condition. Her kidneys have begun to fail, and now she requires special food developed for cats suffering from renal failure. She also needs saline injections three times a week.

My vet has a kind heart, but she’s running a business, not a free clinic. Angel’s treatments and special food cost much more than what I paid for her upkeep 10 years ago.

I know that I’m not alone, that other loving owners face the same rising costs that ageing brings with it.

Yet Angel is not the most expensive member of my mini-zoo.

No, that honour belongs to Thong, one of the two soi cats who treat my home as if it’s a cat-hotel.

At only three years old, Thong has personal problems. Any virus floating around the house always finds him and makes him sick enough for a long-stay at the clinic. He’s always recovering from an accident too. Injuries to his eyes, legs and abdomen have already kept him in the clinic for two or three months.

With some pets, you more or less know how much you’re going to spend – but then, here’s this accident-prone idiot soi cat, who somehow has his claws in your heart, and you end up spending more on him than on yourself.