Pet health spending continues to climb

Medical technology is coming full circle. From the testing laboratories to the veterinarian clinic, animals are receiving the very treatments they once helped develop. Options for animals, such as pacemakers and cancer treatments, have been around for years, while others, such as DNA-testing and genetic

"When I grew up in the country, a dog was just a dog," said Dr. Mike Thomas, a veterinarian at Noah's Animal Hospital in Indianapolis. "Now, people are not as likely as they once were to euthanize their pets."

Michelle Kelley, a registered veterinary technician for Geist Animal Clinic, concurred.

"I think that [we're becoming] a society where people care more about their pets than they did in the past," she said.

And they're spending more money to prolong their animals' lives. Between 1980 and 1997, expenditures for veterinarian services grew an average of 7.2 percent annually in inflationadjusted dollars, according to a 1999 industry economic report by KPMG LLP.