Helping a Sick or Injured Pet

Having a sick or injured pet can be frightening and also expensive. Sometimes we adopt healthy animals, because they’ve been thrown out by someone else, and we never think about the “what if” scenario: what if something happened to that precious family member? Animal lovers give their all to their pets, because we love them. Many elderly and disabled people rely on their pets for companionship, because they have no one else. They almost always live on a low fixed income with little or no ability to pay for emergency vet care.

When disaster strikes, where do we turn? Sometimes the necessary treatments recommended by the vet are costly, and what if they cost more money than we have, or can borrow? There are some organizations we can turn to. Imom.org has a mission statement that reads: "Helping people help pets. To better the lives of sick, injured and abused companion animals. We are dedicated to insure that no companion animal has to be euthanized simply because their caretaker is financially challenged.” Other organizations include Angels 4 Animals, Cats in Crisis, The Pet Fund, Help-A-Pet, and there are other groups set up specifically to help people with low incomes pay for emergency vet care. We should arm ourselves with this information before a crisis occurs, so that should the unthinkable happen, we’ll have the resources necessary to help our beloved pets.

“In caring for ill and aging pets, quality of life should be the priority,” says Alice Villalobos, a founding member of the Veterinary Cancer Society. “Well-meaning owners can put their sick pets through procedure after procedure, but if quality of life isn't restored, the result is overtreatment.”  Ultimately, we have to make informed decisions based on the welfare of the animal, not our own feelings.