ANIMAL CARE Pampering pets can be a pricey endeavor

Vets, who once shunned pets, now offer a variety of expensive treatments.
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
You can just hear your parents harumphing: "The vet wants HOW much to do WHAT to your pet? Since when do pets need ... " well, you fill in the blank.
Teeth cleaning, chemotherapy, blood tests, hip replacement, allergy shots, eye surgery, special diet ... none of it inexpensive and none of it the general standard of pet care a generation ago. Yet today, owners who balk at expensive veterinary options might feel like they're bad pet owners.
It hasn't always been this way, says Dr. Susan Jones, assistant professor of history at the University of Colorado and a licensed veterinarian. She's one of only two veterinarians in the United States to also have a doctorate in history, and one of only a handful in the world.
Relationships
Jones is fascinated by the relationships between humans and animals and how they've changed during the past 150 years. This spring, she published a book, "Valuing Animals: Veterinarians and Their Patients in Modern America," in which she tracks how Americans have grown to place ever greater value on their pets -- and how we rationalize pampering some species of animals even as we butcher others bound for the dinner table.
"Historians look at people keeping pets and say it makes no sense," Jones says. "This animal is worth maybe $50 to $100 on the open market, and a person just spent $800 to have surgery done on this animal. Why are these people doing this? It's not behavior that makes sense economically. As historians we try to make sense of people's behaviors."
Key role
Veterinarians, she says, have played a key role in people's changing views of what's appropriate care for animals. At the turn of the century, most veterinarians wouldn't even deign to treat a dog or a cat, she says.
"Veterinarians did not always look upon pets as worthy of their time and care. They took care of the nation's wealth in the form of farm animals. They long rejected the pleas of pet owners in terms of caring for their other animals," Jones says.
But veterinarians are business people too, and eventually they wised up.
"Over time, veterinarians have not just been willing to respond, but they have increasingly understood that because people care so much for their pets and view them as members of the family, veterinary care has to approximate [the care] that human beings get," she says. "I view this as coming out of the demands of pet owners. Vets constantly feel they have to improve the standard of care. Owners are asking them for these things."
Cycle
So it's a cycle. Owners clamor for better care, veterinarians respond, and eventually what once was viewed as extravagant becomes standard.
Trouble is, many people feel guilty if they don't invest in the best veterinary care regardless of cost, but they also feel guilty if they do.
"It's a secret guilt that many of us have," Jones says. "We feel we're subject to the censure of others for spending our money in a certain way."
And speaking of guilt, what sort of system encourages people to spend thousands of dollars extending a dog or cat's lifespan to record lengths, while farm animals are routinely butchered while still young?
"We've been able to reconcile the different uses we make of animals because veterinarians and other experts have helped us do that," Jones says.
"We need animals for all the products of their bodies," she says. "But we still need to feel good about it. We need to feel like we are civilized people who care about animal welfare, and the ways we do that are things like putting different values on different animals. Loving pets and taking good care of them proves our interest in animal welfare."