Feeling The Pinch When It Comes To Pet Care?

This is a nation of pet lovers, it's a fact that cannot be refuted, with 93.6 million spent a week on pets. Just using cats and dogs as an example, a dog will set you back 9,000 over the span of its life, a cat 7,200.

Despite this, there is a minority of people who are abandoning their pets as veterinarian costs and the cost of keeping a pet rise every year. The RSPCA's response was "in droves" when asked what rate pets were being abandoned over Christmas 2010, RSPCA personnel investigated 329 reports of abandoned pets between December 23rd and 27th. Keeping a pet does not have to be extortionately expensive, there are ways to slash the cost of keeping a beloved pet.

Pet Insurance: It is estimated that 300,000 cats and dogs are put down every year just because their owners are unable to afford the medical and vet's costs. Reports show that during the period of 2003 to 2008, a huge 1.6 million people had to put down at least one pet due to the significant rises in vet costs. If you're looking for a way to minimise the amount you spend on your pets medical and veterinary fees, then considering pet insurance should be your first point of call.

Pet insurance does not have to cost a fortune; many plans can start from as little as a few pounds per month. These few pounds could lead to your pet being well protected and at the same time could avert having to pay thousands of pounds in veterinary costs on the spot at a future date.

Use pet sitting services: Perhaps one of the most costly aspects of owning a pet is by leaving them in boarding kennels, or similar, when you go on holiday. Boarding kennels can charge an extraordinary amount, generally around 8 to 10 per night! This could set you back hundreds of pounds if you are going away for a significant period of time, or even just a fortnight!

A cheaper alternative is to consider a pet-sitting service. This is a fast growing trend between animal lovers who don't want to pay over the odds for the care of their pet whilst they are away. The idea is for the pet sitter to regularly visit your home to feed, walk, change the cats litter and to generally care for the pet. This is a fantastic option for households with several pets, as most pet-sitters charge per visit, rather than per animal. You may even have a close friend, family member or neighbour who is willing to pet-sit for you whilst you are away. This will cost you a lot less than any boarding kennels or even a professional pet-sitter.

Make your own toys: Many people go to great length to picking and choosing toys for their pets, but most pets aren't going to care or realise, so why not just make some homemade toys for your pets? Old clothing, especially fleece make perfect filler for toys as they're easy to wash and durable, toilet tubes or cardboard in general could keep dogs in particular entertained (if yours is anything like mine!), old baby toys stored away somewhere could be a cost saver also.

Don't over feed your pets: A report from a major supermarket found 43% of pets are a bit podgy, with evidence backed up by vet's findings. Again looking more closely at cats and dogs, 47% of dogs were fat, with 26% being classed as obese, on the cat front, 19% were found to be obese. So no matter how much they might beg, you'll be doing them a favour in the long run not giving in to the sad puppy dog eyes.

Vets are finding that the majority of medical issues that pets suffer commonly are aggravated or made worse by the animal being on the heavy side, which in turn will only make the vet bills larger. The pet insurance manager of Sainsbury's, Neal Devine comments that treats for animals, while well meaning can in fact "influence and worsen many medical conditions in pets, such as osteoarthritis and respiratory disorders, conditions that can be very uncomfortable for the animal."

Food - concentrate on quality not quantity: Buying cheap pet food might be the easiest visible way of cutting pet costs, but this above all other cost cutting measures can actually do more damage in the long run. The better the food is (which means the more expensive sadly) the more filling it will be for the animal and more nutritious than the cheap stuff. The more nutritious obviously means the healthier the animal will be, with that in mind another tip is that dry food mix is normally more balanced than tinned meat or other wet food for almost all types of animals.