Our dog is old, by normal measures, and we’ve had a year of issues which has allowed me to take a glimpse into the world of pet medicine. It’s not pretty out there.

Dogs are dying from flea medicine that you give orally as a tablet. One woman lost both her dogs within hours—one big, one small dog. Obviously a lethal dose .

Vet bills that are beyond astronomical, obviously a deterrent to having or keeping your dog. We spent $3,000 in a day. The vet apologized personally for the ridiculous price, explaining the vet clinic is part of a corporation and that it embarrasses her to charge people so much for relatively minor occurrences. Our dog had three teeth pulled and a small cyst removed.

Flea medicine that simply does not work. And the thing is, you know it worked before. We’ve had a handful of dogs throughout my life and have never had so many products that simply aren’t effective at all. And reading reviews, you see this is true for a lot of people.

Medicines that can’t be trusted, just as in the human world.

Constant vaccines. We can’t buy our dog low-fat food from our vet unless he has all his vaccines. Some vaccines are worthwhile, I suppose, but others seem unnecessary and ridiculous. And we have to have an actual prescription card because this is “special food.” The control is beyond ridiculous.

Cheap plastic toys from China coated with who knows what crap. I read the cancer rate for dogs is incredibly high these days.

Really low quality food. We make our dog homemade food with chicken sweet potato, etc., which is why he’s still alive at 13. The food we used to feed him almost killed him.

Insisting on putting your dog to sleep for a teeth cleaning, which kills some dogs or at the very least, is a wallet killer.

After this sweet dog crosses the rainbow bridge, we aren’t getting another dog. And I hate to say it, but if these are control measures to keep you from having pets, at least at this house, it’s worked.