Marina Julius and her husband take care of stray and feral cats in their neighborhood, providing medical care, having them spayed and neutered and finding them proper homes.
And to help counteract the hefty veterinary bills their dedication requires, they’ve found a useful hack: sending the animals across the border to Mexico.
Instead of paying $1,000 for a routine check-up, Julius sends her pets to Tijuana to receive the same veterinary services at a third of the price. Consider it the animal lovers’ version of San Diego residents heading south for medical and dental care.
“I’ve saved so much money, which has allowed me to care for even more animals in the community,” Julius said.
She uses MexiVet Express, a medical tourism company for pets. The company takes animals on a quick cross-border trip, handling everything from estimates, scheduling and transportation to communication during appointments and follow-up care.
Creating a pet hack
Founder Anna Ginsky started the company when she was quoted $2,000 to get her dog’s teeth cleaned at her local vet in San Diego.
She did her own work navigating Tijuana to get the same service for a better price, then realized the pet-hack she created — and the need for cheaper veterinary care in general — had legs.
She began offering rides to pet owners in San Diego to take them to appointments across the border.
Ginsky then created MexiVet Express, which now serves pet parents from San Diego to New York looking to cut costs on vet bills while giving their fur-babies the best quality of life. They transport around 15 to 20 pets every day.
What started off as a one-woman show with Ginsky is now a full blown operation of animal lovers contributing to bringing pets up and down Interstate 5 with pick-up and drop-off locations in San Diego, Orange County and now Los Angeles.
She said preventative care is crucial for a pet’s quality of life — but faced with high costs, pet owners often opt to delay check ups rather than give up their pets.
“They absolutely don’t want to surrender them and they don’t want to see them decline,” Ginsky said “You don’t want to surrender them as much as you (don’t) want to surrender anybody that you love dearly.”
Jeanice Ortiz, a San Diego resident and pet care professional, has used MexiVet for nine years. Previously, she struggled financially, but said she’d rather live in the street than surrender or euthanize her pets.
Relying on cross-border care meant she didn’t need to consider that option, but “could actually take care of our animals, whereas on this side, we couldn’t,” Ortiz said.
The Baja California Health Tourism Association, aware of the trend, has launched a campaign to encourage owners to bring their pets to Baja California, according to Border Report. The care results in positive impacts for Mexico’s economy, advocates say, not just for veterinarians, but also for hotels and restaurants.
Nina Thompson, director of public relations at the San Diego Humane Society, said they are seeing the first-hand effects of the high cost of pet ownership.
The local Humane Society has since sponsored an ordinance before the city council to eliminate pet rent fees, after they documented an increase of animal surrenders from residents due to affordability.
“We are seeing more and more pet owners surrender because they can’t afford medical care,” Thompson said. “However, we always want to try and keep people with their pets.”
The Humane Society offers their own low-cost programs to ease the financial burden of keeping a pet healthy, including offering dental appointments, exams and vaccines through their community veterinary clinic. But the number of people they can serve is limited.
There is also a care program for owners to surrender their pets to SD Humane to receive medical care. Once the pet is treated, pet and owner can be reunited.
Thompson reminded owners that preventative care, whether stateside or across the border, is key to avoiding a costly emergency visit.
“Taking your pet to an emergency hospital is extremely expensive,” Thompson said. “Anything you can do in the early stages can save you lots of money in the long run.”
