The importance of pet insurance
30/01/2008 Here at the animal centre we encourage new pet owners to take out insurance for their animal as you never know what's around the corner and veterinary fees are expensive.

Recently I've been very glad of the fact that I took out insurance when I adopted my own dog, Banger over 4 years ago.

Banger is a 9 year old corgi cross and he's had a very difficult 2 months.
Back in February he was referred to Willows Referral Service in Solihull to see an eye specialist because of a problem with his right eye. He was diagnosed with a water retention problem which meant for some reason the water in eye did not flush properly. This caused a bluish appearance in the eye and needed a variety of medication to prevent water blisters.

His treatment was on-going but in the middle of August it took a turn for the worse when a fly got in the eye causing an ulcer. Because of the on-going condition, the ulcer didn’t heal and after almost 3 weeks of medication, none of which worked; Banger was taken in for surgery.
The surgery was extremely specialist and involved burning holes in the surface of the eye. The burning causes scaring which should stop any more blisters forming. Banger came home the same day wearing an Elizabethan collar because he had a contact lens and some stitches in his eye.
However the ulcer grew bigger and 2 weeks ago there was a possibility that Banger could lose his eye. As a last resort his eye was debrided and thankfully it seems to have worked. Its early days but the ulcer has healed. There is still a blister there but we hope that’ll be reasonably easy to treat as we’ve treated it before.
The costs for the treatment was high, the surgery alone cost over £1,000. The expertise, facilities and the knowledge of the vets at Willows is amazing and I am hugely grateful to them for everything they’ve done for Banger.

Poor Banger though because this wasn’t the end of his problems; he’d also hurt his back and had to have some x-rays to investigate the problem. They were inconclusive so he was again referred to Willows to see an orthopedic specialist. He was then referred again, this time to the Animal Health Institute in Newmarket for an MRI. Thankfully the scan showed a reasonably small problem with 3 of the discs in his back. These discs are protruding slightly, putting pressure on the spinal chord causing pain. It was good news though because it meant he didn’t need surgery. Again the cost of the scan was over £1,000.

In the space of just 3 weeks he’d been admitted to the emergency vets where he had blood and urine tests then had 3 different anesthetics for x-rays, eye surgery and the MRI scan. He was really low for sometime but is now thankfully on he mend.

Now the reason I started to tell you this because of the importance of insurance. Without insurance I would have struggled to find the money to pay for his treatment as the total is now approaching over £4,000. Not only was it a very stressful time for Banger, it was also very upsetting for me to watch him in such pain and discomfort. I am just so grateful that I had the insurance so I didn’t have the added worry about finding the money to pay for the treatment.

All animals adopted from the centre can take 4 weeks free pet insurance with Pet Plan, an offer which is extended to animals outside the centre.
RSPCA pet insurance is also available.

Leaflets on both insurance policies are available in reception and the centre received a premium for every policy that is taken out.