Owning a pet takes a lot of responsibility and care. When you first think about getting a cat or a dog, you only picture the fun times the two of you will have, playing around together. However, the first time you have to take them to a vet clinic, you might realize that it’s not all fun and games. Regular visits to an animal hospital or veterinary clinic can be extremely expensive, never mind if you needed to to see an emergency vet. However, just because it’s costly doesn’t mean that you have to forego having a pet. Here are a few ways that you can make those visits to the vet clinic a little more affordable.

Pet Insurance
As with human health insurance, there are various different plans that are available for pets. You may still need to pay up front but once the vet gives you the receipts you can send it to your insurance provider and they will reimburse you. Pet health insurance plans can cover anything from regular check ups to emergency visits, vaccinations, illness, injury, genetic conditions and more, depending on the type of plan that you choose. Pre existing conditions will probably not be covered.

Payment Plans
If you do not want to get health insurance for your pet, then your dentist might be able to work out a payment plan with you if you come across a very large bill. Not all dentist offices will work with you on this so make sure you ask before you pet is seen. Otherwise, you will probably be expected to pay during your visit. However, even many pet clinics that don’t offer payment plans will work with you somehow, either getting your emergency insurance or perhaps an extension might be available to give you time to come up with the money.

Pet Credit
There are various different credit companies that offer a line of medical credit that will cover your pet’s procedure or visits. While you don’t want to rely on credit, just like with anything else, having this under your belt might put you a little more at ease should something unexpected come up. You’ll need to make sure that the vet clinic you go to accepts the line of veterinary credit that you are looking into. It’s probably not a good idea to use the credit for regular visits because it might max out and before you have a chance to pay it down, you could have an emergency. Save it for emergency visits so that you won’t have to panic when something unexpected happens.

Pet Savings Account
The smartest thing to do is to actually have a savings account dedicated to your pet. Dogs especially need a lot of veterinary care so it’s important to make sure that you have enough money for that. If you save only $100 a paycheck, which is $200 a month, $2,400 a year then within five years you could have over $12,000 saved up provided that no emergencies happen during that time. That’s a significant amount of savings without having to break the bank each month to do it.

If you have one of these things in place then you’ll find that owning a pet is a great joy. When you have vet bills looming over your head it can be a drag to own a pet but when you have a plan in place, going to the vet clinic will be a walk in the park. Unless, of course, your pet decides that he or she hates going to the vet, then you’ll have a problem on your hands. Animals seem to just know when it’s time to go to the vet and they usually aren’t too happy about. Prepare yourself for the fact that your pet pay not be too into the vet clinic, but it is important that they get check ups at least twice a year in order to stay healthy and prevent any major problems. You actually would probably save money if you visited the vet twice a year because you wouldn’t have let anything go to long to fix. The sooner a problem is noticed, the cheaper it is to sort it out.