So I just saw a post from someone struggling to pay vet bills for their cat's euthanasia (unfortunately lost the user/post) and it broke my fucking heart. However, it reminded me of the list I've been putting together of various charities and organizations who can help you or your loved ones afford veterinary bills in the US.
NOTE: I’m not 100% sure that all of the charities listed are active. There's also an outside chance someone sketchy is part of the organization, so please be extremely careful with your information and personal details.
Not seeing a charity you know and trust? I would LOVE additional groups, grants, or information. These resources are critical for keeping pets out of the shelter system and ensuring they can stay with the people who love them.
Pet Medical Assistance Programs
(Updated 2/25)
under the cut:
For the Love of Alex
https://www.fortheloveofalex.org/
Provides emergency funding for life-saving veterinary care for low
income families.
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Dogs on Deployment
https://www.dogsondeployment.org/
Grants financial assistance to military pet owners during times of
emergency.
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Frankie's Friends
https://www.frankiesfriends.org/
Provides grants to assist with the cost of life-saving or life-enhancing
emergency or specialty care for pets whose families cannot afford the
cost of treatment.
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Friends & Vets Helping Pets
https://friendsandvetshelpingpets.org/
Assists families with financial limitations to pay for extraordinary
veterinary expenses necessary to save a pet's life.
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Waggle
https://www.waggle.org/
Pet-dedicated crowd funding platform devoted to raising funds for pets in
medical crisis. Your pet may also qualify for a matching grant.
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The Onyx & Breezy Foundation
https://www.onyxandbreezy.org/
Provides funding and support to pets of individuals where medical
hardship is present. Apply online.
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Free Animal Doctor
https://freeanimaldoctor.org/
Pet-dedicated crowd funding platform. funds raised go directly to the vet.
Over 90% of their campaigns get fully funded.
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Joey's Paw
https://www.joeyspaw.org/
Provides wheels, prosthetics, and mobility aids to dogs with special
needs.
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American Pit Bull Foundation
https://apbf.dog/
Breed-specific organization. Offers a number of services for pit bull
parents, including financial aid for veterinary care and behavioral
training. Also partners directly with veterinary care providers to offer
financial assistance to clients with pit bulls who are facing financial
hardship.
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Brown Dog Foundation
https://www.browndogfoundation.org/
Public fund that helps with pending bills, does not reimburse bills already
paid. Apply online.
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The Pet Fund
https://www.thepetfund.com/
Helps cover the cost of chronic illnesses like cancer, heart disease,
endocrine disease, etc. They help with pending bills, do not reimburse bills already paid. Apply online.
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The Magic Bullet Fund
https://themagicbulletfund.org/
Helps people who have dogs or cats with cancer who can't afford
treatment. Slightly questionale name (I say, all in good fun.) Apply online.
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Live Like Roo
https://www.livelikeroo.org/
Offers a number of services to pet parents caring for a pet with cancer,
including financial assistance for treatments, hospice care, and grief
counseling. Apply online.
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Red Rover Relief
https://redrover.org/
Offers urgent care grants of around $200. An application must be
submitted before treatment expenses are incurred.
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Paws 4 A Cure
https://www.paws4acure.org/
Non-profit that helps with surprise veterinary bills for pet parents in need.
Submit an online application with your vet's diagnosis and estimated
invoice for consideration.
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Veterinary Care Foundation
https://veterinarycarefoundation.org/
Helps cover vet costs. Unlike other funds, your vet must be the one to
apply and they must be enrolled in the program.
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Bow Wow Buddies Foundation
https://www.bowwowbuddies.com/
Offers veterinary expense relief for pets with severe injuries or illnesses.
Apply online.
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Help-A-Pet
https://www.help-a-pet.org/
Offers financial aid for injuries or illnesses in dogs.Household income
must be less than 40k, or 20k for a single-income household.
(more coming??)
Final note: if you want to come here and bitch about people having pets they can't afford, keep walking. I'm too tired to get into all the details right now, but I have worked with animals and their people for well over a decade. So if this is your stance, you should re-examine your relationship with the concept of kindness, the current realities of our economy, and existing shelter/foster groups.
PLEASE REBLOG WITH MORE GROUPS OR DONATE IF YOU CAN!! I will verify any recommendations to the best of my ability and reblog as many times as needed.
Grieving tonight so I’m going to talk about it. Agent Zero’s passing, grief, and a breakdown of my coping songs and how they apply to me (Silent Film by Sparkbird & Euthanasia by Will Wood)
reading this & seeing it is appreciated. I don’t want him to be forgotten. I want people to know him.
Agent Zero, the cat I had since I was 4 months old & my brother, passed away on June 10th, 2025, at 12:21pm. I have known him since before I was forming memories. We celebrated his and his brothers birthdays on mine, because we were the same age. The triplets.
It didn’t feel real- it doesn’t feel real. I spent days in a haze of disassociation. I have OCD, and my most common intrusive thought spiral for as long as I can remember has been his death. Thinking about it triggers an automatic phrase “he’s safe, he’s alive, you can go see for yourself upstairs.” Between that and his near death scare last summer, it felt like he had died a thousand times. But this time, he wasn’t waiting for me.
Out of everything about that day, four things stand out.
He looked up at me, wrapped in the blanket. His eyes were shining. He had a resting pitiful face, and he looked happier than I had seen him ever before.
My friends came over. I got too tired and shooed them, but it was nice. The noise made it possible for me to eat something- I hadn’t been able to go into the silent kitchen. Zero would always howl whenever people walked in. My appetite didn’t return to normal for weeks.
3. we got Thai food. I remember my father saying “rough day, huh?” And that was the last we spoke about it. My world had been split in two, and it was a “rough day”
4. I was exhausted, grieving, and drowning. I didn’t know who to turn to or where to even start processing. I had Silent Film on repeat. I sent an ask to @.sparkbirdmusic because Silent Film is about the passing of their parrot and I thought maybe they would have some advice. It was tired and rambling. They answered. It was a lifeline more than I care to admit, giving me something to cling to. Advice and sympathy. I forgot to include his name. Sparkbird, if you’re seeing this, his name was Agent Zero. His goals in life were eating chicken and sitting on warm laps and he got both of those.
I didn’t eat consistently for weeks. He was always underfoot, always there, lovingly begging and trying to make you trip. A constant soundtrack with his beautiful creaky voice.
i still have a bit of his hair, as well as his collar from when he was a kitten (that we got him to wear again for a bit, a month before he passed) that I keep on my desk.
Song lyrical breakdown under the cut!
I am living in the eye of the storm
Winded and unwound
It was the largest emotion I had ever felt. It was all consuming, very storm feeling. I couldn’t breathe.
Down on the floor
Trying to find the door
Trying to find the door
Trying to find the door
Trying to find the exit for this grief- I couldn’t see a way out. I couldn’t imagine feeling anything other than this ever again, and I couldn’t imagine that I ever had. It was so all consuming with no way to get out of it
I can’t see for all the dust in the air
Could wave it away
But I wouldn’t dare
Some of it might be you
Some of it might be you
Some of it might be you
The house was vacuumed the day after. All I could think about was his fur. This is also reminiscent of my struggle with photos- I have a picture of him in the cage at the vet, and it’s sad and he looks alone and miserable but. It’s a photo of him. And I’m never going to get more of those.
Every day and every night
You were the
Soundtrack of my life
And now it’s all a
Silent film
he was so talkative. So, so talkative. A constant presence, even when he wasn’t talking he was always THERE. You’d be greeted when you walked into the kitchen with his pitiful meow, and taking out fish was even worse. Falcon, our new kitten, meowed for tuna in the same dish I have a recording of Zero meowing for the tuna in and it caused me to break down crying. I couldn’t eat for so long after, and I still struggle without YouTube/an audiobook/etc. it’s too quiet. It’s smothering.
Every cloudy afternoon
Your voice rang out and
Lit the room
But now it’s always
Dark and
Oh so quiet
Our song, for so many years, was “you are my sunshine”
I would sing it to him near daily. I hummed it to him in that last hour. I hummed it to him until I was told to stop. He always started purring when he heard it. I nearly shattered at the “please don’t take my sunshine away” part because god, my sunshine was being ripped away. I cannot listen to that song. I have not.
I don’t even know where to begin
I don’t even know where to begin
I want to talk about him so badly, to everyone, to anyone- I can’t let him be forgotten- but where to start?
Sometimes the days were long
Sometimes the days were long
Sometimes the days were long
But the years were so short
Sometimes he was obnoxious, sometimes he yelled and my ears hurt, sometimes there was just those never ending days, but.. this wasn’t enough time.
I am living in the shell of a home
Never dreamed I’d feel so
Sad and alone again
No one talked about it after the day he died, outside of necessity. He was my lifeline, what kept me alive. He was my other half.
Didn’t we have more time?
I thought we had more time.
Couldn’t we have more time?
please. Didn’t we have more time? I didn’t get his paw print because of course we have more time. He’s a constant.
god I love silent film
——
Euthanasia - this one hits hard as a grieving person who doesn’t know a certain afterlife
Say you know I love you, and that hope was just not there
he was an old & sickly cat. It wasn’t.. it wasn’t really possible.
And I know, I know that I'm wrong
That when you're gone you're gone
And I can't bring you home
The denial. Between the OCD and the scare last year, it was so unreal. I was genuinely waiting to wake up. In some ways, I still am. I shook the treat jar and waited for him to come running.
But I want, I want to believe
That you'll remember me when you're just memory
Please, I want to believe that you can’t be gone
Roots in the ground
Or uploaded to the cloud or
Warm inside our hearts or as electrons in our head nowhere now
In some way, you have to be here, you can’t be just gone like that- you’re a constant, that’s not a thing, you have to be here with me still
Over the rainbow, can I stop by and say hello and
Sorry I would take it back if I could but I know To love one from too far to call
Is not to love at all, to whom is it I talk?
I know you can’t hear me, I know you’re not going to come running and purr in my lap and cry at me for tuna, I know that, but I can’t help myself from begging you to return
But I want, I want to believe
That you can still hear me when you're just memory
I can’t bear the thought of your absence
Said "it's okay"
And "It'll all be over soon"
I'd never let a bad thing happen to you
Now goodnight I love you
verbatim what I said to him. I told him it’d all be okay soon, he’d feel better. I told him I loved him and I’d keep him safe and goodnight and I loved him and he was my sunshine and I love him and he’d be okay, and he’d be okay, and I love him
And every, everybody dies
Fighting for their lives, just trying to survive
Well now I know, I know why we say
That there's a better place that waits beyond the grave, oh
I got it, theoretically, that it was a comforting thought. But now I really.. I understand. I can’t bear the thought of forever.
And I know, I know it's not true
There's just no more you but as long as there's no proof
I’m logical. I’m not religious really. I know. But.. I can’t grasp it. So I choose to believe, because there’s no proof that it’s not.
Then I choose, I choose to believe
That we'll meet in sweet dreams after you're put to sleep
I want him to visit me in a dream. I would do anything. I think he will. I hope he will. I need it.
—-
If you somehow read through this, thank you so much. It’s okay to RB. Comments sympathizing/relating are okay and appreciated. Generally okay to interact with, I want this to be seen. I want him to be known. Should I post just.. all the little mannerisms? So many things that made him him?
(Second to last drawing by the incredible @ashtonjamesart (sorry for tag), last drawing a quick one from me)
Ponce, already skinny, has lost more than a quarter of his bodyweight since December, he's a lot happier and a bit more active since we took him for an urgent visit, where they loaded him up with saline, although he was already perking up before that after a "will be make it through the weekend"
They were definitely hinting that it's euthanasia time, but we wanted to see if he improves further.
He's eating frequently but just tiny bits at a time. He went outside today but isn't going far and then returned to his apartment unusually quickly, and doesn't seem to want out again. He's jumping on the bed but still weak. We'll have to choose to reorder his medications or not. Like Goldie used to he grasps at life, at the pleasure of being in this living world.
I have waited too long before. It's so hard sometimes to know what to do, especially when they seem so joyful.
my mom is so fucking cute - we've been watching Ronja together after making our way thru almost every studio ghibli film, but she's been spending the night at my step dad's this weekend to be with our dog before she passed away, so she texted me yesterday and said, "you better not be watching Ronja without me!" 🥲 i love her so much...
posting like this as there is a bit to go over.
Culling is one of those topics that can get quite heated.
there pros and cons to it . and not every one will agree with what is ethical.
lets start by saying that culling can be put into 2 categories.
a soft cull : simple removing an animal from the breeding lines.
it may be re homed as a pet
and then
hard culling: euthanasia of an animal
our asker is specifically talking about hard culls in this case.
and I can respect their reasoning.
for me as a breeder I do cull, and often.
large litters can be very taxing on the mothers so I cull pinkies down to 4.
and for older animals that show illness or deformities these too are removed from the breeding pool as my goal is to improve my lines, and not harbour deleterious traits.
now on to C02 , this is the gas used safely euthanise rodents and other small animals.
the best way to set up a Co2 system is to get a hold of the kind of set ups sold in Aquarium stores, these kits have everything needed from the gas bottle to the fittings and most importantly a regulator.
(a Co2 starter kit with regulator)
regulating your flow rate is important for a humane culling session.
add the gas too fast and your intended recipient will stress out very quickly. ad the gas too slowly and you will only concuss your recipient.
(detail of a Co2 regulator)
making you gas chamber is simple , you want a decent sized plastic container with a tightly fitting lid. make 2 holes in the lid at opposed ends . one hole you willl feed your gas line thru . you want it so that the line is close to the bottom of the container when the lid is closed .
the other hole you will want to fit a bit of aquarium air line tube to with a gang valve on it , this line sits outside of the chamber and is your air bleed line. it is important to let the oxygenated air out whilst keeping the Co2 in, Co2 is heavier than then air of the room.
*(simplified diagram of a gas chamber setup)
I wont detail how much gas to use here again this topic is one people get funny about. there are plenty of guides online I strongly recommend using university guidlines for this over say redit posts.
when done correctly Co2 is one of the RSPCA approved methods used in my country for dispatching of rodents
whilst Soda Stream kits are a lot cheaper than the above type of Co2 delivery they are not regulated and supply the gas quite quickly . leading to improper distribution of gas for this purpose.
any ways thank you for the ask , and welcome to my TED talk
This is my cat Mary. She dies by Euthanasia tomorrow. I'm not feeling well at the moment and would appreciate just someone telling me that everything will be okay.
We (my mom and I) have to euthanize one of our cats today.
I'll probably end up crying in the vets office.
I'm glad it's not Autumn, but I wish it wasn't Roly Poly.
She's just over a year and a half old. But she has developed a health condition that we can't afford to fully treat, and they can't keep her on the medicine that helps forever, and without surgery, she will be in pain until she dies from starvation.
It's a bad situation. We've tried different rescues--they won't take her (not that we wanted her gone, but if someone else could give her a pain-free life, then sobeit). We've tried Help A Pet grants. They never answered.
We're both just done.
This is her from about 6 months ago. She was so sweet and alive and happy.
