It's all about dental Hygiene

Wed:

• 8am drop Rocks off for a teeth cleaning.
• 11am Vet calls, blood work not good. May have a tumor
• I say, "did you even look at the teeth?"
• Need xrays, more blood work. No teeth cleaning today. Dog really not good.
• 3:30 No tumor. Canine teeth are bad. May need to extract. Extraction tricky, could break Jaw. Wants to schedule for two weeks out.
• I say, "I want a referral to a dentist." Pause and then vet responds, "Oh yes, that's probably a good idea."
• 4:30 Pick up Rocky, get contact info for Dentist.

Thurs:

• Call Dentist. Bring him in. No need for the buddy to be in pain.
• 4:00pm. Dentist looks at teeth.
• Yep something wrong.
• Nope not the canine
• Back tooth broken and exposed.
• She shows me. Yep, there it is.
• Canines? well heck. They need cleaning, but, don't think they are infected.
• Made appointment, Rocks gets a root canal on Tues. OK, this is all about $$ here. Extraction would be about $200 cheaper. But I'd rather have Rocks have his teeth.

So I've got to ask myself, what is up with the vet? I've been going to this clinic for 18 years. My vet is on vacation and this gal is managing the store. I'm going to wait until after the dental next week, but then I'm going to contact my vet. My confidence in the vet is gone.

Could Rocky have a tumor? Anything is possible. But good golly miss molly what was she thinking?

A Tax on Vet Services

California is looking at charging a sales tax on veterinary services. There are other states that have this tax (Hawaii, New Mexico, and South Dakota).

I gotta tell you I'm torn.

The argument against is that people won't take their pet to vet services. I just don't think that is a valid argument. Let's say the vet visit is $100. If you put sales tax against that, then the visit would be $108.25.

I have to ask myself, would $8.25 cents stop someone from taking a dog to the vet? Probably not, it would be the $100 that would do it.

So isn't the answer that like everything, having a pet is a responsibility. Humans need to make sure they have the $$ to keep the pet happy and healthy (probably not happening in my lifetime - but I can dream).

Another answer is what we have today, generous people putting together funds that assist individuals who have pets to get them check out, and spayed.

However, if the California government is looking for ways to increase revenues, then they should look broader than one group (pet owners). I heard that "movie tickets" are not taxed. Now really, I'm not sure how many of us actually go to the movies anymore, but for goodness sake, why aren't movie tickets taxed? Could it be that there are huge lobbyists supporting this notion of no tax on movie tickets.

I'm not for Taxes, believe me. I'm actually one of those flat tax types who would like to see all hidden deductions go away and if you make $100, $13 goes to the better good (after the first $40,000). But in the mean time, I don't think the government is the "bad guy" for trying to figure out ways to pay for state costs.

I do however think it is criminal that they increase taxes in one area and not in others due to lobbying.

I'm not sure how I'm going on this one, but here is the link to the petition to tell the California Government that you don't want them to tax pet vet services: http://www.petpac.net/action/petitions/stop_the_pet_owner_tax

Go for it.