No, we don’t feed our dog diamond studded bones or anything like that. We’ve been letting him chew on a plastic Nylabone. He loves them and goes through them periodically. Well, on Sunday we were playing with him when I noticed a tooth fragment on the ground. My wife looked in his mouth and saw the tooth with the pulp exposed. After reading that this could be serious, I took him into the vet yesterday. The vet said that it was a fractured tooth and the tooth was a major one. The only option is root canal since Marley (the dog) is only 3.5 years old (older dogs he’d recommend just giving antibiotics and depending on the tooth, extracting it) and he really needs the tooth.
There are basically 2 veterinary dentists in Southern California; one here in San Diego (there are less than 100 board certified veterinary dentists in the world). The vet called later in the day after talking to the dentist and gave me the bad news; it was going to be close to $2000 for the root canal plus $250 for X-rays prior to the procedure. Ouch. So, the dog is scheduled for his root canal next Friday. While we have pet health insurance, I think we’ll be lucky if it covers half. (Yes, we have insurance for our dog; while it may seem frivolous to some, the costs as seen here, for some procedures are extremely high.)
I hate that this is going to cost a chunk of change (and will likely delay the purchase of some stuff), when do you say stop paying for your pet? Isn’t your pet family? I know that Marley is a big part of our lives and I can’t imagine life without him. I know that his time will come, but until that happens, we’re going to do all that we can do for him.