I have 2 old medium sized rescue mutts. The male is 14 and the female is 13. The new vet is suggesting some costly procedures and I'm wanting advice on whether they're necessary/advisable.

The male has a bad knee and it seems to be bothering him quite a lot. He has trouble getting up from laying down sometimes. Vet says he has inflamed gums a lot of plaque buildup and needs a teeth cleaning, which requires sedation. He also has a sore on his good back knee that isn't healing up, and they want to remove that.

Female dog is still as spry and active as she's ever been, but has a golfball size lump on her back. Vet wants to remove that and also do the sedated teeth cleaning on her. On both dogs they also recommended teeth xrays and lab analysis of removed masses, more $$$.

They sampled both growths and looked at them under a microscope in their office. On the male they said it was inconclusive. On the female they said it was a fungus?!? They also ran blood samples on both dogs to check liver function. Male came back good on that. They said female came back borderline and they want to put her on a pill for that.

Everything they proposed on both dogs comes out to $5k. None of these conditions are new and the previous vets I'm used to seeing at this practice never proposed any of this. Feels kind of like a cash grab from the bew person. Also feels pretty invasive and expensive for a couple of dogs that only have a few years left at best.

Thoughts?

A real vet will be along to correct me, but in the meantime...

Dentals are a common thing, just like a human should go to the dentist for a cleaning every so often. Dental X-rays are probably indicated with the severity of dental disease it sounds like is present. Removing the growths and sending for histopath is also likely good medicine. Especially if the one is fungal but that doesn't sound right and you seem unsure on that, so I'd double check with your vet. Is this the first time the liver values have been elevated? If not, may need management but if so, I'd be inclined to recheck in 6 months.

Long story short, I don't think this is a money grab but rather a vet that you're not used to dealing with trying to be thorough. Ultimately, the decision on how much money to spend is yours and if it makes sense to you to spend $5k on two teenage dogs, then everything the vet wants to do sounds like good medicine.

If it were me, I'd probably do the dentals (without X-rays), remove the non healing sore on the male while doing the dentals (already under anesthesia so relatively cheap), and recheck the blood work in 6 months. This is a fairly middle of the road option that does some good without being terribly expensive but has pitfalls like possibly missing things like cancer from not doing histopath on the sore and growth.

*If it were me, I'd probably do the dentals (without X-rays), remove the non healing sore on the male while doing the dentals (already under anesthesia so relatively cheap), and recheck the blood work in 6 months. This is a fairly middle of the road option that does some good without being terribly expensive but has pitfalls like possibly missing things like cancer from not doing histopath on the sore and growth. "

Sounds like a reasonable plan to me.

Full disclosure-I have a bias, it's this a corporate practice or is the owner on premises?

See Islandag comments. Unfortunately, quality veterinary care is not inexpensive, but there does tend to be Some variability in price structure between privately owned and corporate Veterinary prices sometimes. A dental cleaning with mash removal and pathology would probably run between 1500 and $2000 at my practice, depending on the size of the mass and the difficulty of the dental. The prices don't seem all that out of line, but definitely on the higher end, but not ridiculous. Not knowing what the masses look like or feel like is the biggest variable, as not all masses need to be removed in my opinion. Good luck and keep us posted.

I agree with Yesterday. If there really is a fungus, the chances of healing by surgery is slim and then you are looking at long term treatment.