I am so surprised by how many people with pets that I talk to who don’t have pet insurance. It is health insurance for animals (dogs or cats).
I am not a pet insurance expert, I just have experience with King’s insurance company that we have used for the past 8 years, Healthy Paws. He had insurance prior to that, but we preferred Healthy Paws and have been happy with them since 2018.
To be honest, when we first got King in 2013, I didn’t know pet insurance existed. My husband was the one who knew about it- being the responsible human being he is. So we signed King up for pet insurance as soon as we got him at 8 weeks old. Most insurance companies don’t offer coverage for pets until they’re 8 weeks old.
So how does pet insurance work? You decide on the plan you want with the deductible amount and reimbursement percentage. Based on what you pick, that will determine your monthly payment – the breed of dog and age are also a factor. Some companies do have an annual maximum coverage amount, so that is something important to note (Healthy Paws does not have a coverage limit).
*If a dog has a preexisting condition(s), they cannot apply for pet insurance, so it is really important to get it before something like that happens. Obviously if you adopt a dog that way, there isn’t anything you can do.
The plan we decided on was a $250 deductible (which if you’ve ever had to take your dog to the vet, you know how easy that is to meet) and an 80% reimbursement. That is the highest plan option with Healthy Paws, but they do offer lower options! King is 12 years old and his monthly premium is now $227 (it goes up a bit every year). Throughout his 12 years we have had to take him to the vet for a numerous amount of reasons.
King, as a puppy, contracted Bordetella (even though he was vaccinated) and we have never boarded him or taken him to the dog park. He has also had Gastroenteritis – a stomach virus that causes the dog to be extremely ill and poop blood. I had never even heard of Gastroenteritis prior. It’s spread from other dogs by them just sniffing contaminated poop! One think about King is he is so NOSY and wants to sniff everything.
Another reason we had to bring him to the vet for was a broken moler. He is so intense when he chews or plays tug and he cracked a tooth right down the middle. If you have an intense dog that doesn’t play lightly or just goes full force or nothing at all, pet insurance might be helpful!
You ever hear of dogs sniffing foxtails up their nose?? I knew that would end up happening to him one day (again nosy dog). It was after all the vegetation started drying up, we were walking on a dirt path that usually has a lot of dogs. He found this one scent and would not let it go. He sniffed up the foxtail and IMMEDIATELY started sneezing nonstop. He was sneezing so hard, he was hitting his nose on the ground! I got in my car and rushed him to the vet that second. The vet had to give him anesthesia to get the foxtail out and they said he had sneezed it so far back that it was so close to going to his brain. If I would have waited to take him in, he could have died.
Next, when King was 10 years old we found a tumor on his spleen. Apparently this is a very common thing in all types of dogs. In June 2023 King was throwing up all his meals, but was still acting pretty normal. Of course when we called our personal vet, they were completely booked for the day and asked us to take him to the emergency vet.
I appreciate an emergency vet being available, but I really dislike having to take my dog there. They are understaffed and prioritize the more severe cases, so sometimes your dog can sit there for hours waiting to be seen.
We were at the emergency vet at 3:30pm on a Friday and had to leave him there. We were called to pick him up at 8:30pm. The vet said he was given anti nausea medicine and that was it. They couldn’t even tell us if he had thrown up again while he was there. After that he seemed to go back to normal . Fast forward to October 2023, King doesn’t want to eat, he doesn’t want to leave his bed, and his breathing is labored. This happened on a Sunday, so I called the vet first thing Monday morning and was able to bring him in right away.
The vet noticed a firmness around his lower end of his abdomen right away. We were thinking maybe he had eaten something and it got stuck. The vet did an xray while I was there and when she came back in the room, I knew something was wrong. She showed me the image and said there was an 8cm mass on his spleen. He needed surgery right away to remove his spleen. She let me know that there was a 60% chance it could be cancerous and that if it was cancerous, he had a life expectancy of 1-2 years after surgery.
We did not even consider any other options than getting the surgery done right away. He was a very healthy 10 year old and we knew he could recover.
During the surgery they noticed that it appeared his spleen had “partially ruptured” (there were parts of the spleen the vet could see that had been bleeding), but then ended up healing. They theorized the visit to the ER vet was when the spleen had partially burst. The vet said if the ER would have done an xray, that they would have possibly seen the mass in June.
So anytime I hear someone saying their dog is throwing up their food and not eating, with low energy – I tell them ALWAYS ASK FOR AN XRAY! It’s worth paying for it, if it inevitably save your dogs life.
So the surgery goes well! They are able to examine his other organs while they have him cut open and everything else looked really healthy- The tumor, thankfully, had not spread. They biopsy the tumor and send it in. It takes 2 excruciatingly long weeks to find out if it was cancerous or benign. Queue happy tears of relief: we receive the call and find out it was BENIGN. I swear, the happiest feeling ever!
The last couple of years have been tough for King. After his splenectomy, they noticed his prostate was getting enlarged ( he was not neutered and that can be a risk). I noticed one day that he seemed to be peeing often, but small amounts. With a boy dog, even my vet thought, “oh he’s just marking”… but he never did that in our own backyard. He was just squatting to pee in the grass, he wasn’t going along the fence or bushes and lifting his leg. So sure enough when they checked his prostate, it was enlarged.
So we scheduled to get him neutered at 11 years old! Don’t worry there’s more fun to come. During his surgery we had planned to get his teeth cleaned, they had never been cleaned and he had stopped chewing on his bones so much as he aged, so they got pretty dirty. WELL, during the neuter part of the surgery, they found a skin tumor on his testicle…So guess what? They had to COMPLETELY REMOVE the testicles and skin area to avoid the spreading of the tumor. THEN during the teeth cleaning they found there were 3 teeth they needed to remove.
This poor boy. He came home with staples where his testicles where and a bleeding mouth. He had to eat soggy kibble for a week.
Most recently, right before King’s 12th birthday, I noticed a small bump on his back leg. He has short hair, so it’s easy to see a raised bump. I thought maybe it was a bug bite at first, but then realized it never went away. When I moved his hair out of the way to examine it, I saw that it was white and pretty similar looking to the skin tumor on his testicle. We had his annual vet visit coming in a couple of months so I decided to keep an eye on it to see if it grew or changed until then.
By the time we had King’s annual vet visit, the bump had slightly grown, but what worried me is it changed to a more pinkish color. I brought the concern up to the vet, he didn’t seem too worried about it, but decided to aspirate it anyway to be sure. He came back after looking at the cells under the microscope to tell us it was in fact a mast cell tumor and should be removed…with surgery. It was such a small bump, but the safest option was to cut it off and surrounding areas.
So here we are today, he is still healing from the surgery and should be getting his stitches out next week – March 1st, 2025.
These are just my experiences with my own dog throughout his 12 years of life. I have heard countless stories from friends, coworkers and family as well.
If you do not want to pay into something that you might not end up using, at least make a savings for your dog in case of emergencies. An annual vet check up is at least a couple of hundred dollars (which I highly recommend you do). If there is something potentially wrong with your dog, the vet has a chance at catching it before it gets too bad.
Lacey & King 
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