I don’t know how my parents did it. They were dog-lovers who always had at least a pair of canines running around the house. I’d say they were ahead of the curve by a few decades when it came to fully integrating pets into a family. While many of my friends had dogs or cats and they were well-treated, there were differences between how their parents regarded the family pet when compared to my parents. For example, may of the dogs lived outdoors in dog houses. They were fed the cheapest dog food available. Dog food was dog food, right? They saw the vet when the dog was sick or injured, not necessarily on a regular basis -maintenance care was something for the car, not a pet. And if a dog came down with an ailment that might prove expensive to treat, it was time for that dog to “go live in the country.”
In our house, the animals all went to the vet at least once a year for annual checkups. My parents bought premium dog food from a specialized pet store that was more than forty miles away. Our dogs always lived indoors, with us, and usually slept on our beds. And they had as many toys as we did. When our Beagle, named Snoopy (naturally), developed an abscessed tooth, my parents put off buying a new car for a whole year so that they could pay for the surgery to fix Snoopy up. He lived another six years, while in most homes at the time, that would have been the end of him. The animals in our home were content, well-loved companions, not “pets” in the traditional sense. While that may be a common attitude today, in the sixties it was much less so.
What I especially admire about my parent’s attitude with our pets was the tenacity they had to show in order to track down information related to animal health. There was no Internet back then of course, so they didn’t have access to the information sources I can count on. I log onto Pet Meds and any information I need is right there. If my parents had concerns about the way one of the cats was behaving, or one of the dogs was slow in healing from what seemed to be a simple muscle sprain, they couldn’t go online and review advice posted by a veterinarian. They had to go to the library, or locate and buy books about pet health. They couldn’t compare information easily and the concept of getting a second opinion on an issue meant loading up the station wagon and driving to two different veterinarians, miles apart, and paying each to examine and diagnose the animal. It was expensive, time-consuming and frequently frustrating. I inherited their respect for my pets, but I’m thankful I have the online resource I need in PetMeds to make it so much easier.