How much would you pay to save the family pet?

"She's just such a lovely dog so the decision to do (the bone marrow transplant) was easy," Kate told The Daily Telegraph. 

Muffin was treated at Sydney's Animal Referral Hospital – the first veterinary clinic in Australia to offer bone marrow transplants for dogs.

Two months after her treatment, Muffin is in remission and has been given a one-in-three chance of being cured.

"I'll live on beans and toast for the rest of my life to pay it off – but that doesn't matter because I've got my dog."

Which begs the question – how much would you pay to save the family pet?

I can't imagine forking out $20,000, but then I have what Mamamia blogger Kate Hunter derisively describes as ‘Second Tier Pets,’ i.e. not dogs or cats or ponies.

Our household is home to eight chooks and one bunny. I once paid $50 to have a chooks examined – it was the vet's first experience with a chicken, she'd only treated budgies previously – when the neighbours' cat attacked him. I thought was pretty rich considering he only cost $10 in the first place and turned out to be a rooster that we had to pay someone to take off our hands. (OK, I confess, I was sobbing on both occasions. I really miss Snoopy. I even considered moving to the country so we could keep him, which would have cost a lot more than $20,000.)

I have a friend whose bunnies had a fight and one got its testicles ripped open – that little stoush cost $700 to repair. 

Another friend paid $900 to try and save her daughter's guinea pig. It didn't work.

Lana at iVillage confesses to paying $750 to a specialist pet dermatologist for the diagnosis that her dog – pictured above – was allergic to grass. Not an easy one to cure. Impossible, actually. 

How about you? Ever paid crazy money for veterinary assistance?