Andrea McLean didn’t think she’d be able to afford her dog’s life-saving treatment.
The ‘Loose Women’ panellist was left devastated when she was told that her beloved pet pooch Jackson needed an emergency operation on their wedding day last year and, although he made a full recovery, she was stunned by the price that followed.
Speaking on the lunch time show today (26.01.18), she said: "We had insurance and went to pick him up. The vet said ‘are you ready?’ and we joked we should sit down. And she told us and it was eye watering. It was three times the amount we thought.
"We didn’t know what to do. Do we keep him? Do we sell one of the children? It was above the insurance. We said we didn’t have that type of money but we are not letting the insurance deal with it."
Jackson collapsed two days before Andrea tied the knot with her beau Nick Feeney in December and, although she knew he needed surgery, she didn’t tell her children Amy and Finlay – whom she has from two previous relationships – until afterwards.
She explained at the time: "We didn’t even tell the kids that this didn’t happen because 1) we didn’t want them to be upset and 2) I didn’t want people on the day to say: ‘How’s Jackson?’ Because I knew there would be tears. Our lovely dog collapsed two days before the wedding. He’s had surgery, he’s OK now but they discovered he’s got a bone condition, a heart condition and they were going to operate on our wedding day so I asked them to do it the day after and then we were crying the next day when we found out he’d survived. He’s good and he’s home. I am now one kidney short because I never knew how expensive it was for a dog to have an operation."
Andrea McLean’s vet bills were eye-watering
