I’ve always wished that our pets could be covered under our medical plans. For so many of us, they are like our children. And to take care of them properly, it can empty your wallet quickly. In our family, Mulder is known as "Million-Dollar Mulder." Because that is just about what he’s cost me. It’s not that Mulder is unhealthy. It’s more that he’s just unlucky.

And the newest addition to our family, a now 14-month-old Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, Gracie, is well on her way to costing me as much as Mulder. By the time I got around to investigating pet health insurance for Mulder several years ago, he had too many "pre-existing" conditions. I hope I’m not too late the second time around.

With Mulder, it started early, when we found out he had food allergies. He was getting ear infections all the time, as well as itchy raw spots on his fur that he would incessantly scratch into "hot spots." We tried the over-the-counter skin ointments, the eardrops, but nothing really helped. We finally tried a prescription food and it worked wonders. Within a few months, the ear infections disappeared. And we got a special hypo-allergenic shampoo and skin spray that cleared up the skin problems. But it is $70 a month for the food. Shampoo is $17 per bottle. And the spray is $16 per bottle. But it works.

Then we started having the "accidents" when he was about two years old. After a trip to the dog park, we noticed that Mulder was limping when we got him home. We discovered that he’d managed to drive a thick wooden splinter deep into his paw. Around $400 to get that taken care of.

And then, when he was about four years old, he tore the CCL (cranial cruciate ligament) in his right leg. Mulder was in a cast for about two weeks and confined to a crate for six weeks. That was around $5,000 for his "bionic" leg.

And now Gracie… I have to say she’s been very healthy during her first year. But I’m hoping she’s not hitting a streak of bad luck. We had her spayed in December, and two weeks later she managed to get a deep puncture wound between the pads of her right paw. Somehow her paw was gouged by a tiny piece of metal underneath a swinging door. We were at the vet when it happened, ironically, getting the stitches OUT from her spay. So we just walked back in and got more stitches – this time, on her right paw. Probably 100 dogs could walk through the door without any problem, but not Gracie.

And then last week, Gracie darted into the woods behind our house and proceeded to get snared in a web of prickly vines. She cut her ears up, her right side, her lip. All superficial scratches, but I noticed it was the only patch of vines anywhere in the vicinity. Lucky Gracie.

So while I am thrilled that Gracie is like Mulder in so many ways – sweet, playful, goofy, supremely lovable – I’m hoping that his "unluckiness" isn’t rubbing off on her. Hopefully, it’s just a fluke. But regardless, I think I’ll look through those pet health insurance brochures tonight.

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