Aw, veggydog, I hope Your old gal doesn't get sick, too. Expanding Your animal family is always such a joy, even if it sometimes starts out rough.

oh, CW I am sorry for your family's loss.  My thoughts will be with you.

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Gary is doing ok - still eating a reasonable amount.
In a way I feel bad that she is doing so well - one of the women at work I get on really well with was super supportive when I found out about Gary's illness, and let me cry on her shoulder a lot.  She went away for a couple of days over the long weekend came back and noticed her cat wasn't eating much, took her to the vets on Wednesday and found that she had liver and kidney cancer and had to have her put to sleep.  I'm sure she's feeling it's unfair because she had no idea whatsoever that her cat was poorly and thought she was just taking her to the vet for a quick check up.
At least I've been able to be a bit supportive to her.
For some reason her cat passing away has really upset me too, and I'd never met the cat.

That's so sad, shell.  My condolences to both of you. 

that's great that you older dog isn't showing signs of kennel cough, but sucky about the poor dog with the torn ligament - must be painful for the poor thing....and sounds expensive for you too.

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So, just after some advice/comments about Gary.
She's still eating - some days more than others.  She didn't eat much for a couple of days last week, but now she's eating 2 tins/pouches of food per day...in fact on ?Friday she ate nearly 3 thingies of food....which is more than she's eaten in ages.

BUT she is moulting so much.  Seriously so much hair everywhere.....but her coat look just as thick.  I don't understand.  N thought maybe she was on UK seasons still and that she's doing her annual moult....but really we're just coming into winter here so that just doesn't sound right.
She's also grooming a lot more....what gives with that?  I understand that renal cats cats get itchy due to toxins building up in their system, so would the grooming be related to that?

so the hair loss + extra grooming means she's bringing up super hairballs.  It's really quite disturbing.  One of the hair balls the other day was MASSIVE.  Poor wee thing.

But asides from that she's still behaving pretty normally....so pretty much ignoring us still.

It might be

itchy --> grooming --> excess loose hair

also, the extra shedding stuff tends to happen twice a year (ish), so it could be partly due to the change in photoperiod as well, though it's getting to be winter there.

Charlie has one canine tooth left :o (the others have either broken off or fallen out). What was initially thought to be some off congenital lack of development of the roots of those teeth is apparently odontoclastic resorptive lesions, which a lot of cats get... when they're geriatric. She might have it so young (it started when she was 7 months old) because she initially had some malocclusion (inbred cat ftw!). The other possibility is it's because she's awesome like that.

We already know she's awesome, so that one seems more likely.

Charlie is a special kitty!  ;)
I found out today that my new dog doesn't need surgery.  He doesn't have a torn ACL, but rather an old, untreated fracture that deformed his leg and makes him walk funny.  Most likely it doesn't hurt him now, but he'll eventually have arthritis.  Sounds like he had a hard-knock life before I had him.  It's amazing that he's such a little sweetie.

damn, that's some good news. i guess it sucks that he'll have arthritis someday, but not having to have surgery is awesome.

Agreed!

For me, it would depend on the dog's condition. Maybe there's some other treatment that can be tried, or if it's a condition that's not going to resolve, pain medication that he can be on.
It kind of strikes me as strange that they'd care enough to spend 4k on surgeries, but not interacting with him :-\ Maybe they really care for the dog, but hate seeing him in pain/limping, so they avoid him altogether. Obviously not good for the dog, but I can see that happening.
Is the dog friendly? Different animals react differently to pain, and maybe he tends to hide away and avoid people when in pain (others will get very attached to the owner, it depends). Hmm
I don't know what you could do, considering people can get pretty defensive about what they do with their animals, and if you're not coming from a position of authority (like if you had an animal with a similar problem before, or if you're the "animal person" in the family, or have some medical knowledge, etc). it depends on how you think they'll take it, but perhaps a suggestion that they get him seen again or ask about pain management. If they hate giving their dog meds, the vet/tech can show them how (or some people even bring in their animals everyday for dosing.. really.), or some meds can be sprinkled on food, or compounded into a flavored liquid the dog may like.
I guess the question is, what do you think should be done for the dog? Are you thinking that they're not taking proper care of him, or that his condition is bad enough that he should have been euthanized, or that you could take better care of him?
For euthanasia, sometimes people avoid it because of guilt (they don't want to be responsible for deciding their animal should die) or because they don't realize how bad it's gotten (since the decline in quality of life is so gradual). For the former, it can make a difference if the vet actually mentions the option of euthanasia (sometimes they avoid mentioning it, afraid they'll offend to the owner or sadden them or something), since it validates the owner's own thoughts... it's pretty difficult, as the caretaker of your animal, to be the one to suggest euthanizing them. Often people are afraid that the vet will judge them, or that they'll be way off base medically (like they'll accidentally misjudge the disease/condition to be way worse than it is). So it's possible they've never discussed the longterm care and plans for their dog... not sure what you could do if that's the situation, short of bringing it up yourself (and who knows how they'll respond to that; sometimes people are very certain about keeping a suffering, terminally ill animal alive...).
Anyway, it depends on what the dog has, what their perspective of his condition is, and what you're thinking should be done for him.