How Much Money Is A Pet's Life Worth To You?

On the way back from a board meeting tonight I was listening to CJOB which is a local news/talk radio station here in Manitoba. Even though it probably makes me old and boring, I really like news and talk radio. There, I'm coming out of the closet. Don't judge me! Don't judge me.

Anyway, there was an interview with a guy from the Humane Society. The host admitted to him taking his dog to the vet a few days ago and confessed that after he got his bill for over $400 he fleetingly wondered "How much would have cost just to put the dog down?" This lead into a big discussion on how much a person would be willing to put into saving their animal before they'd say "enough." Never being really attached to my pet, I thought $400 was a crazy amount. But soon someone called in and said they had paid over $1000. I was shocked. But then someone said they had paid over $3000 - (twice) on their dog's health! That's over $6000 on an animal. Many of these callers said that money was no object. Once you get attached to an animal you will anything within your power to save them.

This made me think, how much would I be willing to spend to save a dog? And is there an ethical problem if you are not willing to spend money giving life giving donations to starving children but you are willing to pay thousands to replace your dog's hip or repair its torn ACL? I suppose the reason someone can do this is because they are emotionally attached to the dog and not emotionally attached to the starving children. Intellectually we know that millions of children starving is more important then one dog, but because we get bonded to an animal that is in front of us, it's no contest - the dog will win every time. I'm not saying we shouldn't do all we can to save animals (I think animals deserve care and compassion) but I wonder where we ought to draw the line? And what does God think of it all? Is he impressed by our compassion for animals even as we ignore the human needs around us?