Financing a Dog: Should You Get a Pet Loan?

If you are keeping cats, dogs, and birds in your home, it is no wonder as mankind’s love for pets has been going on for ages. This trend continues in almost all countries of the world including the USA. People take great care of dogs, cats, and other pets bought by them and spend large sums of money for their upkeep and welfare.

The American Pet Products Association reveals that in 2021, people spent $123.6 billion on their pets. Their expenditures on the upkeep of dogs, cats, and birds mainly were on daily food, regular caring, and medical expenses. If you are keeping pets, you are liable to spend a lot of money on their upkeep. This is the reason that you might require cash loans to finance all the expenses on pets and also to buy dogs and cats.

What is a Pet Loan?

Pet loans you take from banks and other lending institutions fall in the category of personal loans. You repay this amount over a period of time agreed upon between you and the lender. Such loans are meant to meet the cost of the pet upkeep and also buying pets. You can easily avail of such a personal loan as they require no collateral. This means such loans are unsecured. You pay fixed interest on such personal loans.

The Average Cost to Take Care of a Pet

Caring cost depends on the pet you bring home. If your pet is a dog, you have to spend more. If it is a cat, reptile, fish, or bird, the expenditure will be less than for a dog. We are listing below the average cost of maintaining a pet:

Dog: Average annual cost to maintain and care for a dog in the USA is around $1,391. For food alone, you have to spend $300 per year. The routine medical cost will involve an expenditure of $225 per year.

Cat: Average annual expenditure on keeping a cat is around $1,149 including $225 for food, $160 for medical care, and $140 for preventive medicines.

Bird: If you are keeping pet birds, your average annual cost will be around $185 including $75 for food, $85 for medical bills, and $25 for toys for the birds to play with.

Reptiles: Such pets can be lizards, pet snakes, and Iguana. The average annual expenditure you are likely to incur would range from $190 to $350. These expenses include food, medical expenses, cage, tanks, and heat lamps.

Fish: Your annual expenditure on your pet fish would involve $200 to buy a fish tank with plain water and salt water as the species of the fish may be, and a simple bowl setup pricing $10 to $20.

How to Apply for a Pet Loan?

You can avail of a pet loan at any time. Following are the major points that you must keep in mind while applying for a pet loan which is classified as a personal loan:

Your Credit Rating: You must review your personal credit rating before applying for a pet loan. Since a pet loan is a type of personal loan that is unsecured or without any collateral, your credit rating assessment is necessary.

Interest Rate: Your loan servicing or interest payment rate varies from lender to lender. It is always advisable that you look at the interest rates charged on your personal loan. You should go for the lending company that charges a lesser amount of annual loan servicing rate.

Repayment Terms: This is important for you. You should go for the personal loan which is given on easy repayment terms. This is variable from lender to lender.

Calculate Your Disposable Income: Personal loan is a liability. Before applying for a personal loan, you must calculate how much you can afford to repay the loan annually. The best thing would be to calculate your annual disposable income.

Submission of Your Personal Loan Application: After taking all the above-mentioned points into consideration, you can finally apply for the loan. For this, you have to submit your loan application to a bank or lending agency.

Attach or Submit Documents with Loan Application: The bank or lending agency would require your income certificate, salary slip, personal property details, and other related documents. You also have to give your bank details, and statements of your credit and debit cards.

Sanction of Your Loan: After scrutinizing your documents, the bank or lending corporation will sanction your personal loan. This can be done only after your loan application has been approved. The sanctioned money will be credited to your bank account directly.

[Read More: How Soon Can You Refinance a Car?]

Can You Get a Pet Loan with Bad Credit?

If your credit score is bad, it would be difficult for you to take a pet loan. However, you may avail of it. There are some lenders who may relax the norms and don’t impose stricter norms for bad credit scores. If you have bad credit scores, you should approach some veterinary clinics that offer pet loans. Even if your credit scores are not good, they may advance you to the requisite loan.

Pet Financing for Surgery or Major Treatments

If your pet needs major medical treatment or surgical interference, you have to pay quite a large amount for it. This may cause you to take a loan to finance the treatment of your pet. The cost burden will further pose a problem if you don’t have:

i. Enough cash reserved in your credit card

ii. If your pet is not insured

This may demand you to take a pet loan for medical purposes. In such a case, you should do some research to find out which veterinary groups or lending corporations pay pet treatment loans on zero interest.

Alternative Financing Options

There are some alternative options for you if you need funds to treat your pets in emergency medical cases. They are:

NGOs on pets like the American Veterinary Medical Foundation, Bow Wow Buddies, Waggle Foundation, and Magic Bullet Funds.
The National pet treatment or welfare funding bodies functioning in the USA.
Pet welfare funding bodies functioning in different States in the USA.

Conclusion

Pets like dogs and cats are lovable. They often become an integral part of the family upon coming to your home. This human-pet relationship had been continuing for hundreds of years. It continues even today.