“A dog becomes a luxury item”

Created: 11/22/2022, 06:00

By: Uta Künkler

Expensive animal love: Laura Lipfert now has to dig deeper into her pocket for the treatment of her ten-year-old male Loki, who suffers from osteoarthritis.

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As of today, pet owners have to put significantly more on the table for a treatment.

Why both sides are still dissatisfied with the situation:

Erding - Laura Lipfert's faithful companion Loki is no longer the youngest.

The ten-year-old husky-Schäfer-Doberman mix suffers from arthrosis and has to go to the doctor regularly.

There he gets injections that enable him to walk again without pain.

But that costs money.

Lipfert calculates with around 100 to 120 euros per month.

Maybe more.

Because today, Tuesday, the fee schedule for veterinarians will be adjusted.

Animal owners face cost increases of up to 160 percent.

“A dog is increasingly becoming a luxury item,” says the 39-year-old from Erding.

In addition to the monthly injections for Loki, there are the usual costs for vaccinations and one or two niggles - for the male and Lipfert's second dog, the two-year-old wolfhound mix Ivy.

Loki's arthrosis can quickly add up to around 2,000 euros in veterinary costs per year for the two dogs.

"If you extrapolate that over a few years, that's a lot of money," says Lipfert.

You have to keep the high costs in mind when you buy an animal, she says.

Now just a little bit more than before.

According to the Federal Chamber of Veterinarians, the scale of fees for veterinarians (GOT) is a nationwide ordinance that sets the costs for the individual treatment steps for veterinarians.

It was last fundamentally revised in 1999. In 2017 there was another cost increase of twelve percent.

And then today's climb.

One minute of vet treatment now costs 2.25 euros.

"Long overdue" was the new adjustment, says the Erdinger veterinarian Sina Kiel.

Because even the increased fees are still not sufficient for the veterinary practices to operate profitably.

"Even now we can't work to cover our costs," says Kiel.

The problem: The new GOT was calculated with data from 2020.

The recently massively accelerated inflation is therefore not yet included.

But in the past few months, everything has become more and more expensive.

Within a few weeks and months, the prices for consumables had risen enormously.

Kiel does the math: "In the summer, a packet of latex gloves cost me five euros, now the same packet costs 15 euros." And items like these cannot be passed on to customers by Kiel and her colleagues.

A cost increase of 200 percent, on which the veterinarians are left sitting.

This raises the question of how a practice can still be maintained at all.

The increasing costs are offset by the increasing number of patients, explains Kiel from Forstern, who only took over the "Four Paws" practice in the middle of Erding in July 2021.

These are the good consequences of the pandemic times: In the loneliness of the lockdown, many people came to the dog, the cat or the hamster - Kiel's regular clientele.

"I'm getting almost four new customers a day at the moment," she says.

That means a lot of work, but also more income.

Only: There is a lack of staff at every nook and corner.

Both veterinarians and veterinary assistants are difficult to find, complains Kiel.

In recent years, she has already witnessed several practical tasks from colleagues in the district who simply could not find a successor.

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As is so often the case, the linchpin is an appropriate payment.

"We veterinarians are one of the worst paid academic professions," says Kiel.

"We are generally not big earners and will not be swimming in money even after the increase," she scoffs.

"But we also have to make a living from something and can't happily farm in the lousy business just because we like animals so much."

Dog owner Lipfert can absolutely understand that.

She considers the adjustment of the GOT to be entirely justified.

"Everything is getting more expensive, even the doctor has to get his money's worth." She only hopes that not many animal owners will no longer take advantage of medical examinations out of frugality - or in the worst case they will abandon their old and therefore expensive animals or bring them to a home.

Veterinarian Kiel is also aware that the fee increase comes at a "very inconvenient time".

At a time when everything is getting more expensive and customers' wallets are getting emptier.

"I'm already noticing that a lot more people are coming at the beginning of the month than at the end of the month," says Kiel.

Animals are only taken to the doctor when the new salary is in the account.

And installment payments for larger interventions are also being agreed more and more frequently, reports Kiel.

She therefore now recommends every pet owner to take out health insurance for their pets.

Even if 400 euros a year sounds like a lot of money at first - if an animal gets sick, they are quickly gone.

"Especially if an operation is necessary, that makes a lot of sense," says Kiel.

There is already a cost of 5000 euros to be expected.

"It is what it is," says dog owner Lipfert.

It is certainly a pity that the new GOT has hit her twice with her sick Loki.

“But”, she adds with a laugh, “the dogs are just my luxury.

Others have a Gucci handbag.”

ujk