Need to blow off a little steam.

[Stonepounder]

This is sort of a political rant, but it concerns pets.

As you may have heard our wonderful (not) Rethug governor has cut Medicaid benefits for about 500,000 KY residents. We just found out about another little gift from him.

We have 5 dogs ranging in age from 5 months to 15 years, all Cavaliers. Two of them are diabetic, one is in CHF, and the 5 month old is coming up on her appointment to be spayed. As you can imagine, our vet bills take a significant chunk out of our budget. We had Bella in for her last round of puppy shots and to schedule her surgery earlier this week. We asked for a quote for the surgery so we could budget for it. That's when we discovered that a change to the tax code had taken place recently and now all veterinary services must charge sales tax! That means we get to pay an extra 6% for all exams, meds, surgical procedures, etc. I think I am going to have to increase the dosage of my blood pressure medication!

Thanks, GOP for the new way to gouge money out of us while at the same time cutting benefits to the needy.

[get the red out]

1. I live in Lexington, KY

And I am really pissed off over that! I have two precious dogs myself, my young pup has hip dysplasia and that could result in surgery at some point (hope not for our our dog's sake). All Bevin does is raise taxes and try to hurt people. I found out today that I am going to now be taxed by the state for my parking pass at work (I work at a rather large university downtown where everyone wears a lot of blue, LOL) I am an office drone, I am not getting rich.

Matt Bevin came into office like Trump, wanting to see how many poor and middle class people he could hurt. Raising taxes doesn't count when you raise it on the common people. This man is everything I hate in a human being.

Cavaliers are such sweet dogs btw. Love those little guys, so affectionate. We have a Border Collie and Border Collie Mix.

[iscooterliberally]

2. Samson has a message for your governor:

Oh may the fleas of a thousand camels infest his armpits too!

[ploppy]

3. What a great way

to discourage people from vet care for their pets! Not to mention spay/neuter. It just doesn't seem to stop.

[CountAllVotes]

5. The vets where I live won't see you

If you haven't been there in 18 mos. its bye bye, no vet for your animal!

The greed is so out of hand!

Damn them, damn them all!

[Runningdawg]

4. PLEASE check into free/low cost spay and neuter clinics offered by local animal welfare agencies

Here in Tulsa at the ASPCA clinic, which operates on a sliding scale, I was able to have my female kitten spayed, tested for all the major nasties, given all age-appropriate vaccines AND microchipped for $44.
One 60 lb male dog was $72 and the same size female was $90. City licences were $5 extra.
Southern Agriculture in Tulsa also offers a low cost vet clinic. An exam is $20, most vaccines and medications are $12-20 and the highest lab fee is $30.

Years ago Tulsa had a great charity, sadly we no longer do. It was started to help AIDS patients but expanded to others. If you were sick or poor and needed help with your animals - food, vet care, temp foster homes - there were volunteers that would provide it. I would love to see programs like this around the country.