We love our pets and want the best for them. They give us joy, love, loyalty, companionship, care and protection. Yet, when unexpected emergencies arise, such as an open wound caused when your dog had a not so friendly tussle with another dog, most of us are poorly prepared to deal with situation at hand.
Consider Connie.
Connie had a lifelong friend – Cleopatra, or Cleo for short
Cleo was a beautiful shepherd dog. At just three years of age she was just out of puppyhood but you’d never know it. The way she poked her nose into everything, alert to the slightest movement that signaled play, always eager to chase the ball or play frisbee. Cleo’s favorite however was going for a nice long walk with Connie on the trails in the forest just behind where they lived.
One day after Connie and Cleo got back from their walk, Cleo lapped up a whole bowl of water and as was typical, pranced around the kitchen a bit. Suddenly something was not right. Connie couldn’t quite figure it out at first, then she realized that Cleo was in pain. What to do?
Connie was beside herself. She realized that Cleo was suffering from stomach torsion.
They say that life is like a bunch of grapes – one bunch after another and when you get one bunch with one sour grape, well the rest of the grapes in that bunch are going to be sour as well. It seems that Connie had plucked a sour bunch of grapes as first one misfortune and then another befell her in a very short time span. The worst was that she was completely broke. Literally not a penny to her name. While she was going through this agony, she watched poor Cleo die in her arms.
Connie never got over it. One never does.
Torsion is serious and swift and even if Connie had been able to get Cleo to the vet there is no guarantee that a different story would have been written. What tore at Connie’s heart, and still does till today, is that she simply had no money. She told me how only a few weeks ago she had a conversation with a neighbor who had just bought pet health insurance for her dogs. She wonders if had she not taken so much time going over in her mind whom to call for financial help, or just threw Cleo in the car and raced off to the pet clinic, if the outcome might have been different.
“You know, she tells me
If only I had had the means, a pet insurance. I just never thought anything so serious would happen to my Cleo. I just did not think about it! She was only three years old!”
More pet owners are realizing the importance of taking out pet insurance. In North America only 3% of pets are insured vs 20% in the UK. Annual premiums are less costly than an unscheduled visit to the vet, or worse yet, the early loss of your loved pet.
If you are the type of person who doesn’t want to have to choose between going into debt or putting your pet down, pet insurance is for you.
