re: #226 lobo91

I read something the other day about an apparent trend toward people having sick pets euthanized, rather than pay for expensive treatments for them, due to the economy.

Many people consider their pets to be part of the family.

If someone can decide that it’s more cost effective to have their dog put down instead of paying to get its broken leg fixed, I don’t think it’s that big a leap for them to decide that it’s too expensive to pay for live-in care for that grandparent with Alzheimer’s.

I think that argument overreaches, to be frank. Animals are not people. My mom and dad had their beloved cat “put down” last year; he had reached a ripe old age, and the treatment necessary to keep him going would have been uncertain and incredibly expensive. But it’s quite a leap to say they’d have run through the same process with - say - me, as a kid, had I come down with something.

If anything, I’d guess that Americans spend far more keeping their pets alive than they did, say, 50 years ago.