A story from the New York Times brings up a different twist to a quandary that many might have to face. If a senior dog needs surgery how much is too much to extend a pet’s life? The twist is that the dog didn’t belong to writer Roz Warren. It was Max, her son and his wife’s 13-year-old dog, who needed the gall bladder surgery costing $6,000—and it was Roz who offered to pay a third of it.

Dog lovers have long known that being able to spend time with their dogs when they are ill makes them feel better, no matter what health issues they are facing. Yet, it’s only been in recent years that pets have been able to visit them officially in hospitals. Many hospitals have rejected such healing opportunities because of concerns related to liability or infection risk, although a few forward thinking facilities have allowed pet visitation for over a decade.

A much-commented New York Times article explores the singular pain and responsibility that comes with end-of-life decisions for our pets. How much effort, and how much money do you spend to extend their lives? All of the diagnostic tools and treatment options available today make these questions inevitable and also much more difficult to answer. Cancer can be treated with chemo and radiation, even amputation.

The Bark has been caught in the middle of the war between celebrities and the paparazzi — actress Eva Mendes was recently quoted that she’d prefer publications blur the faces of her dog, Hugo, a Belgian Malinois, and her boyfriend Ryan Gosling’s pup, George (a mixed breed who has a very distinctive “Mohawk” fur-do) so that they are unrecognizable. “I’ll go somewhere and they’ll be like, ‘Hey, Hugo!’ and I’m like, ‘How do you know Hugo’s name?