Many of the people in these usenet pets groups work in Veterinarian
Clinics, which makes them biased.

In my city of Tucson, Arizona it is very difficult to find a Vet that
will agree to reduced cost services, or even payment plans to low
income pet owners,regardless of the circumstances. Their motto might as
well be PROFIT FIRST, ANIMAL WELFARE SECOND. Many of these outfits
are run by corporations, are bloated practices or have greedy
practitioners.

This is in contrast to at least two other cities I have lived in
where a vet would often treat an animal for free if the owner could
not afford it. So I suspect this is a problem local to Arizona, which is
not suprising given the State ranks so low in nearly every quality of
life research measure.

There is a definite lack of professionalism and ethics in this regard
in the Vet community in Tucson. They don't care if your animal is sick.
What is important to them is if you can PAY NOW IN FULL. This is partly
the fault of the do nothing state government here that does little or
nothing to promote or enforce ethical standards in this or other
professions. Frequently,Arizona is thought of as the State where
Easterners who could not make the grade come to be free to practice
in their substandard, unprofessional ways (go west young man).
Recall also that Arizona is a right-wing pro-business, anti-union State.
Hit the road jack if you cannot pay- I don't care if Fido IS suffering.

Therefore, I have posted this to let other pet owners know.
GUESS WHAT? YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO TO THESE SHYSTER QUACKS. If you are
literate and willing to do a little reading, YOU CAN TREAT 90% of
your pets problems on your own. Only the more serious and complicated
medical problems which require surgery, etc is a vet needed.

There are many sources on the net for veterinary medications and
at least several do not require any "please, may I?" prescriptions
from capitalist pig profit mongers. You can order online and the order
will be delivered to your door. There are OTHER sources of medication
as well. You just have to do some searching and reading. Stock up on
what you need quickly because corrupt capitalistic pig Vet orgs are
acting to stop any access to medical supplies so you will be forced to
come to their dues paying members and pay their surcharges on medicines
as well as their exorbitant consult fees. The way it works in Amerika is
these so called professional organizations pay "contributions" to get
politicians elected to do their bidding, basically a corrupt, bribe
driven system.

If you get yourself a good software search engine, such as Copernic
or Firststop websearch, both of which have free versions, your search
for information on how to TREAT your pet will be greatly simplified.
Google by itself simply doesn't do it any more.
There is an abundance of up to date, well written, articles on how
to diagnose and treat your pet on the web. alot of which is written
by DVMs. You only have to know how to search for it, which is really
quite simple. You will often find that you know more about a particular
problem than the Vet that is charging you $50 just to walk through the
door, and much more for meds and actual treatment.

Many of the medical problems your pet has you will be able to diagnose
and treat yourself, ASSUMING that you are literate and have the time
to read and educate yourself. It does not take that much time.

Do not listen to the flamers in pets groups that keep insisting
that everything has to be taken to one of these unprofessional money
grubbers. The people in pets groups are often the ones who are profiting
from your taking the animal to the vet, usually at outrageously high
prices. And you will have the satisfaction of knowing your pet was
treated by someone who REALLY DOES care about the welfare of
animals-YOU!

I will soon be starting a web interest group for pet owners to share and
develop information on how to treat their animals themselves along with
information on how to report unethical and unprofessional workers in the
vet care industry. Examples of people I know who have successfully
treated their pets recently are successful treatment of respiratory
infection, eye infection, etc.

Here are a couple URLS to get you started (took me about 10 min to find
these, more to come) You vet may be reluctant to give you a prescription
for the ones who require prescriptions since he/she loses her cut that
way.

http://top-drugs.com/index.php - may be a good source for meds
http://www.medi-vet.com/ -sounds like they require prescriptions
blehhhhh! http://www.1800petmeds.com/
http://www.animalcarecenter.com/index-2.html good info on the war to
keep shysters control over prescriptions
http://www.kittens-lair.net/cat-heal...dications-for-
cats.htm
l-good article on what NOT to give your cat
http://home.howstuffworks.com/cat-care-tips-channel.htm cat care tips