Serket

Manuka honey - she goes nuts for it. Also strawberries once she worked out how to eat them

I've got no idea on the legality of it, but even if you are able to, it might be hard to provide proof of vaccination should you need to for boarding, etc. if they don't take your word for it.

That video is absolutely amazing....

I'm also looking at pet insurance at the moment as we are getting a new puppy shortly, and I'm happy to pay the day to day vet costs, but would like cover for any big issues that come up for peace of mind. I personally didn't find the Choice report to be all that enlightening beyond showing the different companies who offered the insurance, they really didn't look at which conditions were included under 'illness' or 'injury' and what was excluded. Choice lists all the products they recommended as 'best buys' as offering 100% coverage after paying the excess, but the things that are covered under each policy are certainly not the same. This may all have been covered in previous threads on insurance, and if so, sorry for the redundancy (I have read a few here myself in my research, but a lot of them were about whether they paid claims etc from memory, and not so much the policy details) So far I've only looked at two - PetPlan and PetInsuranceAustralia (PIA), but some differences that stood out to me were: ILLNESS PetPlan will cover parvo, kennel cough, etc as long as the dog is vaccinated, although they will not pay if you do not keep your pet vaccinated (what that means is not 100% clear, e.g. annual vacs only or titre testing accepted, and was discussed on another recent thread) PIA policy states that: 3.2 We will not pay any Vet Expenses attributable to or resulting from: 1. a Pre-existing Condition or a Condition arising within the Waiting Period 2. an Illness caused by endoparasites (such as worms) or ectoparasites (such as ticks, fleas, skin mites) unless covered under the Paralysis Tick Benefit defined under section 4.3. 3. Treatment of the following: a. for dogs: infectious canine hepatitis, parainfluenza, parvovirus, canine distemper , canine adenovirus and all forms of bordetella (kennel cough) So, although those illnesses are largely prevantable via vaccination, vaccinations are not always 100% so there is still a risk of contracting those diseases but PIA won't cover them at all even if your dog should have been protected through vaccinations. If you know your dog is immune to those diseases via titre testing, then it's not really an issue that PIA won't cover it. AGE & BREED PetPlan has policies with unlimited claims, whereas PIA has a limit per condition for the lifetime of the animal, but given that after a certain age PetPlan will only pay 65% of the claim, it means that if older dogs tend to require more frequent/expensive treatment, the unlimited claim policy means nothing as you must pay 35% of costs. For the dog breeds listed below, the 65% benefit restriction kicks in at 7 years, for all other dogs it is 10 years Those breeds are: Beauceron, Bernese Mountain Dog, Bulldog, American Bulldog, Australian Bulldog, Bull Arab, Deerhound, Dogue de Bordeaux, Estrela Mountain Dog, Great Dane, Irish Wolfhound, Leonberger, All Mastiff breeds, Newfoundland, Old English Sheep Dog, Pyrenean Mountain Dog, Rottweiler, Shar Pei, St Bernard or any crosses of these breeds. PetPlan will also not cover the dogs below at all (not sure on PIA): 6. Any breed of dog that is banned by any Australian Government, Public or Local Authority, or that is crossed with any banned breed or Pit Bull Terrier or Dingo or crosses of these breeds. 7. Any dog declared as a dangerous dog by a Government authority. 8. Any dog that must be registered under the Dangerous Dog Act. PIA policy is not good if you have a younger dog which could develop a serious health problem at a younger age and use up it's lifetime limit early, but if your younger dog is generally healthy, then you save that benefit for use in their old age as PIA will cover all dogs over 9 years old as long as the dog has been covered with them prior to that point, in which case it's much better than PetPlan Personally I'm still undecided and still looking - I like the unlimited claims for PetPlan and the coverage of diseases just in case the vaccinations aren't 100% effective, but I also worry that an older dog is likely to need more care. Serqet