Hmm, seems interesting. A couple people at my dog park and my local petsmart employees pushed for me to do their banfield thing. The dog-park owners told me they saved so much by going with the puppy plan for their pup to get all the visits and spayed and everything.. but honestly I think I saved more by going with my local vet. Although I don't care for my vet too much, the assistants are very helpful. And they never required an appointment when Yuki had worms, I just brought in a stool sample, they did a test and then told me what she had. The only reason I disliked them is because the vet never seemed to care - never asked me what food they were on, how well they were doing at home, the visits were /very/ brief, etc. Oh and the assistant pushed for me to get Yuki spayed there right at 6 months before her first heat, I politely declined because I didn't want to spay her too early. But Yuki and Cloud are healthy and I'm satisfied with that.

Most private vets offer puppy plans as well, just have to call around. Ours,where I work, is a 40% discount, huge. Plus, puppy planners get 10% off the spay if done within 6 months of starting the plan, so around 7.5-8 months old for spay and neuter. It's a fact that if a normal owner doesn't spay or neuter within the first year of life, they never will. Vets who push to spay aren't looking for money, persay, they are concerned about pet overpopulation and the health of your pet in the long run. We see it all to often. We spay plenty of dogs at 5-6 months and they are fine. I actually like to spay before the first heat to avoid any future mammary problems, but those are my personal thoughts like I said in another thread, finding a good vet is hard these days, and it really shouldn't be. I don't understand why they all cant be caring and compassionate. It's disheartening.

Ah yeah, I just looked at the differences between early spay / late spay and decided I'd rather do it at 8 months ish. That's when I got Cloud done ^-^

We found a great Vet here in Tampa and most of the medications we had to give our Maggie before she passed were actually covered and given at publix for free. A friend of ours was going to banfield but after seeing how much our new vet cared about the animals rather than a huge bankroll they switched also. I would say find a nice local vet myself. So now our Nikita has a great loving vet for years to come

banfield told my sister (dachshund owner) that they required her to be spayed at 4 months and if she waited any long she would have to pay a fee.

To make a long story short... we use to go to Banfield. Took our lab in for a limp and they ran $1200 worth of test, ever time we questioned it they would say words like cancer, bone fractures, valley fever....You want to make him better right. So of course we agreed to it. We got him home and the next day it was worse. My husband looked everywhere on his foot and found a cyst...$30 in antibiotic is all he needed.