Who can put a price tag on love for a pet?

I was going to write about an off-the-news issue for today's column -- parent concerns about criminals on campus or the deadly toll of teen drinking and driving.

But all I can think about is Puff.

Puff is my 10-year-old pup. That's 70 in human years, but the tiny black-and-white mutt we brought home when he could fit in the palm of my hand has always been as lively and lame-brained as a puppy.

Now -- suddenly, it seems -- he has slowed down. He sleeps all day. He can't keep up with me when we walk. I realized he had gotten alarmingly thin last week when I clipped his winter coat off.

Then on Wednesday when I came home from work, he didn't come downstairs to greet me. In fact, he hardly budged from his bed all evening, except to stumble down to the kitchen and slurp water.

The next morning I took him to the veterinarian's, where he remains, caged and with tiny IV taped to his leg.

Puff felt as light as a feather when I carried him in to see the vet, a gentle man with a matter-of-fact manner, who refers to his patients as "individuals" and pulls no punches with their owners.

"Puff is a very sick dog," he said. His test results showed massive infection, diabetes, pancreatitis and an auto-immune disorder. He needed immediate hospitalization.

Dr. Erickson scooped him up from the examining table and cradled him while I said goodbye. Puff's body sagged and his eyes were glazed.

Recovery will be a long haul. The best-case scenario: He'll require twice-daily insulin injections. I try to quiet the calculator in my head. But I'm already tallying the charges. There goes the income tax refund, the summer vacation, the bathroom remodel.

Loving a dog is not a matter of dollars and cents. Americans spent more than $11 billion on veterinary care last year -- for items as diverse as tooth extractions and kidney stones. Tomorrow, our newspaper's business section features a series on the rising cost of veterinary care and how pet owners can deal with it. The good news is our pets are living more comfortably and longer thanks to high-tech interventions and pharmaceuticals.

But every pet owner has a personal calculus of costs and benefits that dictates how far they'll go for an animal companion. Cataract surgery but not chemotherapy. Insulin injections but not a new hip joint.