I found this post looking for info on removing Blu-Kote stains, which I’ve got all over my hands from trying to spray sheep ears torn from tags getting in fencing. We’ve got 2 inch tears in two of the girls. I hate those damn ear tags.

I’m with both of you on this. I don’t have health insurance for myself, and there is no way I can spend big bucks at the vet’s for the animals.

I know you keep saying “it’s not a pet,” but I’ve actually gone through the same awful decision process WITH a pet. About 10 years ago I had a beautiful, healthy cat that out of nowhere got sick, and after spending over $300 at the vet (which was every fucking cent I had since I was a student), I was given a whole bunch of ambiguous “it could be…” answers, none of them very optimistic. One night, after days of constant care and feeding her with a syringe for every meal, she started to, quite obviously, die. At that moment I went through a whole bunch of emotions from fear to misery to guilt. I know I could have scooped her up and taken her to the hospital (where they demanded immediate payment, not even a payment plan option!), but I knew she was dying and knew I didn’t have a penny more to pay for the vet bill. So, I didn’t take her, and to this day I feel like a real jerk about it. She died, and me, in grief and confusion, called the vet’s answering machine and left a tearful message, hoping they could shed some light on what just happened (they never called back).

You could say I should have taken her to the vet anyway and found SOME way to pay it, you could say that I really didn’t KNOW she was going to die, you could say that I should have just tried anyway, even if it was a lost cause. You could even say if i couldn’t afford emergency vet bills, I shouldn’t have a cat (I had Sabina at that time as well). Who knows. I’ll always feel guilty about it, true. But I guess in the end I also realize that it was a cat, a very sick cat who I tried to save and couldn’t. Pets die, sheeps die, and we try, and it’s sad, but in the end, it’s a cat or a sheep. I really don’t mean for it to sound callous, just honest.