It just occurred to me that there appears to be what I have described as the “great triumvirate” in the world of dogs. I’m referring to a convenient network, if you like, of three groups of people and the objective is to make money from dog owners. You have dog breeders who kick everything off. They breed dogs who are not as healthy as they might be. This is due to inbreeding. It has always surprised me that domestic dogs have shorter lives than domestic cats. This is probably because humans have been breeding dogs for a much longer time than they have been breeding cats. And there are far more purebred dogs than there are purebred cats. This means that dogs are less healthy than cats which is why you will find that people spend far more money at veterinary clinics on their dogs than cats.
So you breed unhealthy dogs or the dogs are not as healthy as they could be. This encourages people to take out pet health insurance because they are worried about hefty veterinary bills. This is where I can introduce a video by Victoria Birch. She paid out US$95 monthly for her previous dog who is now deceased. He was a very ill dog it seems to me. She pays out US$45 per month for her current companion animal. She believes it is value for money and her reasoning is that her dogs are pretty ill and therefore she gets all the premiums back and more. It makes sense. You can’t argue with the logic. For her it has worked because her dogs were not as healthy as they might have been.
The last party in this great triumvirate is the veterinarian. They are treating dogs who are insured. They can provide premium treatment at the highest possible price because they are being paid by the insurance company. The dog’s owner pays initially but then they are reimbursed. I’ve always felt that insurance companies lead to higher veterinary bills. I’m not denigrating the insurance companies. There is a market for them and they satisfy that market. There are people who need insurance companies. It is reassuring to have your dog insured and for these people they provide a good service. I’m just commenting on the fact that it is a kind of moneymaking machine with three players: the breeders, insurance companies and the veterinarians. The people who support this machine are the dog owners; the public at large who love their dogs.
