(MONEY Magazine) – AS A VETERINARIAN, I HAVE some thoughts about April's "Those Doggone Vet-Care Costs."Yes, as you reported, there is a wide array of sophisticated medical treatment available for animals today. However, expensive and extensive treatments do not always result in the desired outcome. I doubt there is a practitioner alive who has not heard this phrase from a disgruntled client: "You mean I spent all this money and he/she died!" And what about the suffering animals have to endure undergoing many life-prolonging treatments? It is my belief that we are tending to the owners' needs, not the animals'. Luette Forrest, D.V.M. Irvine, Calif.

DESPITE WHAT YOU SAY, TREATMENT for sick pets is still very far behind what is available for humans. My dog died recently from acute renal failure. Even though kidney breakdown is one of the most common causes of severe illness among pets, dialysis treatment for dogs is not widely available. Phyllis Goldstein Lexington, Mass.