Insuring your dog

CLAWS said:
Gilly, youve got a boxer if I remember correctly from your thread.

Whats he like? How much time do you spend with him per day? Boxers are supposed to have loads of energy or so Ive heard.
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He's awesome. Absolutely awesome.

There's somebody with him almost constantly. They do have a tendency to get bored and chew everything in sight :)
 
My Lab's insured with Direct-Line for £6.99 a Month, worth every penny just for the peace of mind :)

A family friends Lab got hit by a car a few years back, another dog was fighting it (Yup, a Staffy..) and chased it onto the road, vet's bills were over £2K and another £2K for the Micra it wrote off! No pet insurance :eek:
 
I don't really buy the bad press Staffies get. Its the owners not the dogs. Unfortunately the dogs attract a certain kind of owner. You either get the militant owners that won't take **** from their dogs, and in turn get a well trained companion, or you get the chav that gets one cos it looks 'ard.

There happens to be more of the latter around. Thats the problem IMO.
 
It's worth it, if anything just for peace of mind, those vet bills can be extremely expensive. My dog managed to swallow an ice lolly stick when he was a pup, cost about 500 quid to get it removed, thankfully he was insured!
 
Get the Insurance. We've claimed loads back for one of our border collies. His had 1 hip replacement which was rather expensive, plus silly amounts for drugs accidents that his had like when he ran straight into a lamp post at full pelt as he was looking at the stick flying past him rather than where he was going. KO'd himself and was not right for weeks.



For a house dog i probally would't bother with insurance, but with big dogs like mine that need to be on long walks/runs 3 times a week where theres a lot of risk from other dogs and the environment, its just worth it for piece of mind.
 
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Dogs really must be insured and its soon due to be law.

It is law for instance to walk your dog on a lead through a roadside pavement and have insurance for if your dog ran out in the road and caused an accident, you would be liable.

PS, Boxers are a nice compromise between staffies and other ulgy dogs. You should get one of them instead!
 
My mum and sister have 2 pugs. One of them is fairly ill at the moment and its remarkable the lengths the insurance company are going too to try and get out of paying it. It probably doesn't help my mum has taken them to a specialist pug vet. They get treated better than I ever have in hospital. Toys on demand, then finest foods, hot hot nurses who aren't afraid to stroke them.
 
Butters said:
PS, Boxers are a nice compromise between staffies and other ulgy dogs. You should get one of them instead!
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They are great dogs, unless they have shoestrings and shake themselves, cue slobber all over the place :D
 
Gilly said:
Someone talking sense about staffies..

There happens to be more of the latter around. Thats the problem IMO.
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Absolutely spot on. Staffies are renowned (sp?) for being a very loyal, gentle and protective breed. A dog is always lead by its' owner, a bad one will produce a bad dog. Yes Staffies look agressive, but they are not imho.

We picked up a Staffie Cross (we think with a boxer) from the Dogs Trust about 2 months ago. She is nothing but loving, playful, and gentle except when threatened by another dog. She is great around kids, other people and other dogs. We took her for her first proper dog training lesson last night and the woman running it said she was better behaved and trained already than some of the dogs who had been going there for a while.

Anyway back on topic, for pet insurance, I would recommend Petplan, most insurance companies will not cover a "for life" illness, they will. Meaning if the dog gets diagnosed with something like eipilepsy but can happily live on drugs for the next 10 years, then Pet plan will pay for the rest of its' life for those drugs, not just the first year that you claim for it.

They are not the cheapest, but they do come highly recomended by the Dogs trust, and other people I know. Our old dog was also insured with them and we had no problems.

There is also another company you can get life membership to (for any pets) that you put an identity tag on with a reference and it has a number for someone to ring if they find your dog / pet. It works. Ours escaped not long after we got her, and my phone was mobile was ringing before my parents even realised she had gone missing! I'll dig out the link for them later. Well worth the money as well.
 
We're getting an Akita next year and can understand what your saying about the bad rep. Seems chavscum get them as puppies because they think they're ded 'ard, but don't realise just how big/powerful they get when adults. So a lot end up in rescue centres.

While reading up on the breed I've joined a couple of Akita breed forums and they recommend pet plan, direct line & sainsburys. I've read a lot of complaints of E&L Insurance so I'd try and stay clear of them.
 
Problem with insurance is the excess is always set at about £40-£60. My vets bills are always £37.something and never £40+. I have been paying over £100 for god knows how long and never had to claim. This year round I knocked it on the head.
 
Third Opinion said:
This year round I knocked it on the head.
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Big mistake.

Thought I'd bump this thread and stress the fact that you should insure your pets. I've just picked up one of my dogs from the vet this evening and the bill was £987, which means this month he has racked up just under £1250 worth of vet bills.

Fingers crossed the insurance company will pay out for both things which will mean I'm only £100 out of pocket, a big difference.
 
After a friend's Staffordshire Bull Terrier nearly bit my elbow off when I was a kid, I'm afraid I have to concurr that they're an unpleasant breed.

My parents have a Chocolate Lab bitch - she is the incredibly loyal, playful, good tempered, obedient and well behaved (particularly when around my infant nephew). I would recommend the breed in a heartbeat.
 
Our dog is insured by petplan and has been for the last 13 years. Only claimed a couple of times in that 13 years so its probably not been that cost effective, however given her age now and her current health there are going to be some big vet bills in the near future by the looks of things, so at the end of the day its all swings and roundabouts.
 
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