1…After a New York City taxi struck Jessica Malionek’s dog, Mojo, flinging him 30 feet in the air, she spent $4,000 for veterinarians to perform emergency treatment and then life-saving surgeries on her beloved dog. “It was like they were treating a person,” Malionek says.
These days veterinary medicine can be every bit as sophisticated as human health care — and the costs reflect it. Animal lovers spent $19 billion on veterinary care in 2001, the most recent figure available, up from $7.2 billion a decade earlier, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. And per-visit costs are skyrocketing: Between 1991 and 2001, the average cost of a veterinary visit for a dog nearly doubled, from $50 to $99. For cats, costs rose even more precipitously, jumping by 107%.

2…NEW YORK (Aug. 29) - Leona Helmsley’s dog will continue to live an opulent life, and then be buried alongside her in a mausoleum. But two of Helmsley’s grandchildren got nothing from the late luxury hotelier and real estate billionaire’s estate.

Helmsley left nothing to two of Jay Panzirer’s other children - Craig and Meegan Panzirer - for “reasons that are known to them,” she wrote.

But no one made out better than Trouble, who once appeared in ads for the Helmsley Hotels, and lived up to its name by biting a housekeeper.

“I direct that when my dog, Trouble, dies, her remains shall be buried next to my remains in the Helmsley mausoleum,” Helmsley wrote in her will.

Jeff