Is the veterinary industry running a scam?

We're heading out on a long weekend trip tomorrow morning, so we dropped off our little Yorkshire Terrier to be boarded at the vet this afternoon. The price for boarding her was actually quite reasonable at 15 bucks a night. The real expense comes in the dental cleaning that our vet strongly recommended. When the expert is telling you that a cleaning will substantially increase the life expectancy for your furry little child, it's sort of hard to say no. And, to be honest, we can afford it; plus, her breath stinks lately, and a cleaning couldn't hurt on that front. Thing is, they don't tell you exactly how much it's going to cost. They give you a base price for the cleaning and let you know that there is a possibility that she could need some teeth to be extracted, with a cost ranging from $30 for a "level one" extraction to $90 for a "level four" extraction. They were pretty vague when I asked them to explain how extraction-levels are determined, saying only that a "more difficult" extraction, like one in the back of the mouth, would cost more. Well, ok. They promised to call us beforehand if the total cost of the dental procedures would exceed $400. Which is a lot of money. And it's not like we're going to say no if they call and ask to do something, given that this is supposed to extend our precious pooch's life span. But, man, they really fleece you. Last time we took her to be boarded overnight, we approved a $27 vaccination booster, but when we picked her up, the bill for the procedure was almost $100 because, the vet said, they had to examine her first to make sure she was healthy enough to get the shot. I mean, really.

I had a conversation with my parents the other night, and my dad lamented the high cost of contemporary pet ownership. In his day, he noted, you took a pet once every year or two to get a rabies vaccine, but, otherwise, assuming the dog didn't develop some obvious disease or suffer some injury, you didn't take it to the vet. Nowadays, with all the care that your pet "needs," you really ought to have some kind of health plan for it. But this leads me to wonder, do our animal really need all these vaccinations, all these procedures? Especially a dog that, like ours, and like many urban dogs, stays inside most of the time--where are they going to be exposed to rubella, distemper, or even rabies? I mean, sure, it seems heartless to deny your man's-best-friend of any preventative care that he or she might need, but isn't it the veterinary industry that's telling us we need all of these things? And I would imagine that the prevalence of all these preventative treatments are most prominent in urban areas, where, to many, a dog really is like a child, rather than, say, a farmhand or a watchdog. I'd bet money that farmers don't take their precious sheep herders to the doggie dentist, and they do just fine. Aren't these people bilking us? Exploiting our paternal love for our animals?

Weren't dogs wild animals at some point? I would imagine that our pets' wild ancestors did just fine without yearly dental cleanings and 200 booster shots a year. But maybe therein lies the difference. Our modern pooches--especially a tiny, helpless one like ours--are less a product of natural selection and more one of human design. They are bred to be small and cute (actually, small terriers were apparently originally bred to catch small vermin, such as mice, but ours has never done any such a thing, thank God, save that one time she bit a dying but still buzzing locust, a decision she soon regretted). I feel fairly confident saying that our pooch would not survive long if left on her own. I also feel fairly confident asserting that never have packs of small terriers existed in the wild, so there's really no way to know how such an animal would fare without the care of humans. So maybe dogs like ours--who sustain themselves on easy to munch doggie food and an occasional dropped sandwich, rather than teeth-strengthening snacks like bone-of-recently-deceased deer--really do need human-provided dental care and vaccinations.

But still, I think there is a healthy bit of manipulation in the modern urban veterinary industry. I have a gut feeling that the vast majority of our pets would live healthy and happy lives even bereft of the constant care recommended by our vets. But, of course, like any overprotective parent, we'll continue to give her as much care as is recommended, to the extent that we can afford it. Here's hoping, for our sake as well as hers, for as few as possible "level four extractions" this weekend.