the owners of a less expensive option.

We had to take my Bassett hound in when he was about 6 months because he was dry heaving for a few hours straight. The vet did an x-ray and said something soft was stuck in his stomach. He said, and this is verbatim, the only thing he could do was "do surgery to remove the blockage or put him down". At the time we couldn't afford a 4k surgery, so we reluctantly made the decision to put him down.

Fortunately for my dog, the vet tech came in and told us that we should take our dog to a clinic she recommended. We did, and the vet there gave my dog some food and then some stuff to make him throw up. Turns out he had just eaten a ton of grass and couldn't get himself to vomit. That trip cost like 300 bucks.