Thank You everyone for your input and opinions on my dilemma. All of the comments gave me alot to think about. I do want to stress that I wasn't looking for a fault on the vets part to try to reduce my bill. I felt something was wrong with Valentina the day that I brought her home from the surgery. She had massive drainage as soon as I got her home from the vet and after a couple of days I suspected that the vet may have done something not quite right. As a reminder for anyone that doesn't remember, my vet sent me home with my dog and did not tell me that any kind of problem was going on. He did tell me that he inserted a drainage tube for some fluid to be able to come out but in no way did he prepare me for what actually happened. Also on the day that she was released it was a Saturday and he told me to leave the bandage on until Tuesday!!!!!! The bandage was thoroughly saturated by the next morning so I called and the vet said that he would come on Monday instead of Tuesday to change the bandage. I believe that not having the bandages changed often enough was the cause of her infection but that was the instructions that my vet gave me so I did what he said. I wish now that I had learned to change the bandage from the very beginning so I could have changed it every day intsead of waiting for the vet to come to my house and do it. Anyway today I have calmed down a bit about this and after reading all of the comments I am feeling better. I will wait to see what the vet tells me on Tuesday. I don't want to have any hard feelings between my vet and I and I know that it is ultimately my responsibility to pay that bill. I do think that the vet is going to reduce it some but he said that he couldn't reduce it too much more. But I will probably just go with whatever he says he can reduce it to. But I still do want to see what they did do while she was there. Upon studying my bill many many times I did notice that only 1 of the irrigations is on my bill. And I know that she had at least 6 or 7 irrigations done. So realizing that did make me see that they did deduct something. Also there are probably many other things that they had to do that I don't realize. Really the most important thing is that she did finally recover and she is doing wonderful now. She is so strong now that one day she nearly broke my toe while I was outside with her and she saw another dog. I tried to hold her back and she pulled me across the grass. She weighs 40lbs more than I do. My shoes were just sliding and I was holding on as tight as I could and as I was trying to grip the ground somehow my toe got twisted. It is all black and blue now. I have been taking her out in the fenced in area more now because of that. But it is alot farther for her to walk to get there and she does get tired easily especially if it's hot. She is normally very good on the leash and listens well but since she has been feeling better from her surgery she has gotten just plain wild sometimes!!  

Oh! That is a terrifying story about your cat and the coyotes! I am sure that emergencies are much more expensive than regular visits. It must be hard to fit in all of the emergencies and your regular appts. as well so I guess they charge you extra for that reason and lots of times the emergencies cause the vets to have to stay late. At my vet they are dealing with emergencies everytime I call or go there. Vets are super busy people!! It will be hard to decide whether to stay with my current vet or not. I have been through alot over the past 13 years with them and I even took my animals there when I was a kid. I can't imagine when it is Valentina's time to go having to go through that with a new vet's office. I have developed a relationship with the doctors and the other people at this vet over the years and it would be very odd to go through such a personal thing with people that I barely know. I don't think there is enough time to get to know a whole new staff before it's her time. I'll just have to wait and see and see if I can get an answer through prayer.