Hattie the Boxer: Poorly Paw and Pet Insurance

Pet Insurance for Boxers

Even veterinarians wish that animals could talk to us. Sometimes it is difficult to figure what is wrong with an ailing dog. We can guess what the problem might be from their body language, but it would be so much easier if our favorite pooches could just tell us where it hurts. Fortunately, veterinary medicine has come a long way and there are many diagnostic tests to help us determine what a dog can't tell us. However, having to perform a battery of tests can be expensive.

Pet insurance is a good way to allay the prohibitive cost of extensive testing. I just read a letter from a dog lover who found this out for herself. Julie Stewart from Leicester in the United Kingdom writes to tell us about her boxer, Hattie.

Hattie is beautiful three year-old boxer with the typical temperament of most boxers. She is fun-loving and very active. Julie says that Hattie was a handful for the first couple of years of her life. She suffered from terrible separation anxiety. Julie helped Hattie overcome the difficulties of this disorder by getting her into agility classes, keeping her active and occupied. These were a great success until the evening Julie found her howling in pain after a romp in the back garden. She was mysteriously lame in her right hind leg.

Julie wasn't sure what had happened and Hattie couldn't tell her, so her best guess was that the busy girl just had a terrible cramp. The fact that the pain went away after an hour seemed to back-up this theory as well. So Julie didn't think much else about it. Then a month later the same thing happened, Julie took her straight to the vet.

Hattie was put on anti-inflammatory drugs to ease the pain and the vet thought perhaps she had a small tear in a ligament. They took a trip to the orthopedic surgeon and the surgeon suspected the same. After a full set of x-rays and a series of examinations, the results weren't what they had hoped for, however.

The orthopedic surgeon couldn't find anything which cause the sort of pain Hattie was experiencing. She did find a slight right hip dysplasia and a slight abnormality in her back, but these didn't explain her symptoms. In the mean time Hattie would have to stay on medication to ease the pain.

Julie would do whatever she needed to in order to Hattie out of pain and back on her feet. So there was question about spending the money for examinations, testing and medications. Thankfully Julie has pet insurance for Hattie because so far the cost has been £700 (sterling) about $1400 US. Julie says, "Thank goodness we were insured as we love our crazy girl to pieces and we want the best for her."

There are a lot of good reasons to consider pet insurance and Julie wanted to share with everyone that, "When your pet is ill you are so anxious for them, having pet insurance certainly takes a little of the stress away as you know you can provide the best for them. I would advise anyone to take out a policy just for the peace of mind."