Vet Checks

[jackpaddy]

I signed up for ours because they do it all for me ie put advocate on his neck, give him his drontal every three months. Check his weight and health. Send me reminders when everything is due which I am far too disorganised t remember, and are generally really helpful, our vet nurse is also behaviourist and will have a natter about issues we may have, we always did it ourselves for our last dog but Jack is our first pup and we were unsure of everything puppy wise so we thought we would at least do it the 1st year and see from there. Our surgery also has free puppy class were they can all meet and have a sniff. It costs £14 a month and then we pay £26.00 petplan which I did get cheaper quotes but Petplan with our lastdog were fantastic.

[kent]

Heck no ! I am not tight but I don't take my car to the garage every month for them to tell me its ok, neither do I take my kids to the doctor each month. Indeed if the vet offered it up front to me I should likely look for another vet, sounds like they just want your cash

[vicky payne]

Heck no ! I am not tight but I don't take my car to the garage every month for them to tell me its ok, neither do I take my kids to the doctor each month. Indeed if the vet offered it up front to me I should likely look for another vet, sounds like they just want your cash

Golly some people are suspicious!

[kent]

Heck no ! I am not tight but I don't take my car to the garage every month for them to tell me its ok, neither do I take my kids to the doctor each month. Indeed if the vet offered it up front to me I should likely look for another vet, sounds like they just want your cash

Golly some people are suspicious!

Nope, just bright enough to work out what I spend on a dog on average. if you have 6000 clients and only 1 in ten take you up on that offer its a nice little earner and vet nurses wrack up the same small wage bill client or not, most vet nurses are 25 or under in my experience so many of us have twice the practical experience to do this ourselves. Ever wondered why treating a "companion animal" is many times more costly than a sheep- even for the same thing

[vicky payne]

Companion animal treatment costs more than a sheep because in most mixed practices the farm work is heavily subsidised, plus expectations are lower. Trust me, if a farmer wanted a sheep referred for an mri and spinal surgery the cost would be the same as for the equivalent sized dog...but the sheep doesn't have the same emotional value to it's owner as a dog so.....the farmer shoots it. NZ vets laugh at the amount UK famers spend on individual sheep and cattle so it's all about economies of scale and value (both economical and emotional) Farm work has increasingly taken the very model criticised here....the farmer pays a monthly fee to cover all routine work and in the same way the farmer must guage whether it will be cost efective for his enterprise. Even with lambing many practices have set up fixed price 'lambing clubs' based on the flock size. Some farmers will 'win' with this type of deal if they have a year with a lot of bad lambings but others will 'lose' if they need fewer than average vet lambings. (I never really understood why I did any lambing at all as I did nothing a farmer couldn't have done himself.....)

I have already stated, as have others, that these pet health schemes aren't for everybody. They aren't designed for the 20 dog owner who only contacts the vet in dire emergency, uses non prescription flea/worm treatment and can deal with minor ailments themselves...they are designed to spread the load for the one or two pet owner who follows all the guidelines on gold standard PET care. If a client is already buying all the services offered on one of these deals the vet practice will actually make LESS money, but they get it spread through the year which aids cashflow. Like it or not we are businesses with bills to pay!

If anyone wonders why I'm a bit touchy this morning because I spent weeks and (£'s) organising a special weekend where we had loads of offers designed only to help owners ID their dogs and which was never designed to make us any profit at all and no-one attended. Even offering chips at the reduced rate of £10 this month is viewed with extreme suspicion. They wouldn't even enter a raffle for £1 to win a £20 voucher (with all takings to a dog theft charity)! I wanted to stand in the road and shout 'screw you i hope pikeys steal your dogs and you never get them back' but that would not have been very professional! Vets get accused of being money obsessed at every turn and yet when we try to offer good deals we're just greeted with suspicion. It hurts.

[da.drew]

Companion animal treatment costs more than a sheep because in most mixed practices the farm work is heavily subsidised, plus expectations are lower. Trust me, if a farmer wanted a sheep referred for an mri and spinal surgery the cost would be the same as for the equivalent sized dog...but the sheep doesn't have the same emotional value to it's owner as a dog so.....the farmer shoots it. NZ vets laugh at the amount UK famers spend on individual sheep and cattle so it's all about economies of scale and value (both economical and emotional) Farm work has increasingly taken the very model criticised here....the farmer pays a monthly fee to cover all routine work and in the same way the farmer must guage whether it will be cost efective for his enterprise. Even with lambing many practices have set up fixed price 'lambing clubs' based on the flock size. Some farmers will 'win' with this type of deal if they have a year with a lot of bad lambings but others will 'lose' if they need fewer than average vet lambings. (I never really understood why I did any lambing at all as I did nothing a farmer couldn't have done himself.....)

I have already stated, as have others, that these pet health schemes aren't for everybody. They aren't designed for the 20 dog owner who only contacts the vet in dire emergency, uses non prescription flea/worm treatment and can deal with minor ailments themselves...they are designed to spread the load for the one or two pet owner who follows all the guidelines on gold standard PET care. If a client is already buying all the services offered on one of these deals the vet practice will actually make LESS money, but they get it spread through the year which aids cashflow. Like it or not we are businesses with bills to pay!

If anyone wonders why I'm a bit touchy this morning because I spent weeks and (£'s) organising a special weekend where we had loads of offers designed only to help owners ID their dogs and which was never designed to make us any profit at all and no-one attended. Even offering chips at the reduced rate of £10 this month is viewed with extreme suspicion. They wouldn't even enter a raffle for £1 to win a £20 voucher (with all takings to a dog theft charity)! I wanted to stand in the road and shout 'screw you i hope pikeys steal your dogs and you never get them back' but that would not have been very professional! Vets get accused of being money obsessed at every turn and yet when we try to offer good deals we're just greeted with suspicion. It hurts.

Good post Vicky.

I still use my vet for the "gold standard pet care" as you put it. I have to be honest though, I'm still not convinced. As I said in my origional post, I cut their nails and do all the other bits and pieces for them. I understand that a booster is about £30 a dog (please correct me if Im wrong) and I know that Advocate is a perscription only treatment (dont understand why, maybe you could explain that one). But I also belive that I could go to my vet and ask for a perscription for advocate and then but it elsewhere at a cheaper price, is this true?

Finally, when I was out with the dogs yesterday, I was talking to another handler who told me that in Ireland (and Im unsure if this is still the case) you could buy the annual jabs and adminster yourself for about £6.50 a go. If this is or was true, it would appear thatm even with the vets time taken into consideration this is a massive profit!

Just had a quick Google and found:
NobiVac DHP = £8.18
NobiVac Lepto 2 = £2.62
Advocate (forone year) £50.08
Total £60.88

For both my dogs £121.76

Vet scheme costs me £318 a year for my two so I could be saving £196.24 a year

So furthur question can I get a perscription for these treatments and adminster them myself?

Please understand this is not a post having a dig at vets, its just a bunch of questions.

[kent]

Hey, I realise vets have a business to run. Better not have a go at livestock farmers though as that's a far tougher business than many of us even understand, try doing the work and incurring the costs first and getting paid by the best bidder on the day sometime in the future

[Pwned]

The bit that seems to be missing from your calculations is that a prescription from your vet isn't going to come for free... Unless I've misunderstood things prescriptions last for a maximum of six months (sure Vicky can put me right here), so that's at least two per year for the advocate, plus the droncit to cover the worms that advocate doesn't, which you might need to do 2-4 times a year (OK, so 2 of these could be on the same scrip as the advocate, so not as much, unless your vet charges per prescribed item rather than per scrip iyswim), then times two dogs... it might knock a very big hole in how much you think you could save.

(edited to correct typo)

[da.drew]

The bit that seems to be missing from your calculations is that a prescription from your vet isn't going to come for free... Unless I've misunderstood things prescriptions last for a maximum of six months (sure Vicky can put me right here), so that's at least two per year for the advocate, plus the droncit to cover the worms that advocate doesn't, which you might need to do 2-4 times a year (OK, so 2 of these could be on the same scrip as the advocate, so not as much, unless your vet charges per prescribed item rather than per scrip iyswim), then times two dogs... it might knock a very big hole in how much you think you could save.

(edited to correct typo)

Your right I had missed it out, but having just phoned up ive found that they cg=harge per item. £11.96 for the first and then half price for the second and can only issue 6 months supply.
So based on this, heres what I find (this what it would cost for my two dogs):

Advocate = £118.10
NobiVac DHP = £ 34.30
NobiVac Lepto 2 = £ 23.18
Drontol = £ 28.80

Total = 204.38

Still saving £114 per year but I get the satisfaction of knowing that I have a record from the vet that these various preventions have been administered.

[patricia t]

I pay £9.99 a month and that covers his vaccinations and as many vet consults as I need - I only pay for drugs at visits now. My previous vet charged £70 for the vacs, so on the basis that I am now paying £120 per annum, it only takes 2 vets visits for me to 'break even'. With the amount of problems we have had in the past 3 months, it had been a God send - I don't have any worries about popping into the vets for advice or a consult when needed rather than worrying about shelling out another £30/ visit. Horses for courses I suppose, but it gives me peace of mind.