VPI Hambone Award
Nominees Announced for Most Unusual Pet Health Claim
Veterinary Pet Insurance Co. (VPI) receives more than a million claims each year. While most of these claims are for common pet conditions or routine care, every now and then a claim comes by that reminds us all just how unexpected unexpected pet accidents can be.
Each month, VPI employees select and nominate one interesting claim in search of the most unusual claim of the year. All claims considered for the award are for pets that have made full recoveries and received insurance reimbursement for eligible expenses. In August 2010 VPI will ask the public to vote for the year’s most unusual claim from among these monthly nominees.
The top pick will receive VPI's first annual Hambone Award and designation as the most unusual claim of the year. The Hambone Award is named in honor of a VPI-insured dog that got stuck in a refrigerator and ate an entire Thanksgiving ham while waiting for someone to find him. The dog was eventually found, with a licked-clean ham bone and a mild case of hypothermia.
Following are the 2010 VPI Hambone Award nominees.
JANUARY 2010 - Phoenix the Labrador Retriever
Sometimes you get the stick, and sometimes the stick gets you. That’s what Kirsten Myers of Menlo Park, Calif., learned late last year during a game of fetch with her 6-year-old Labrador retriever Phoenix.
"It was a freak incident,” said Myers. “My brother and I were at a park playing fetch with Phoenix. I threw a stick for Phoenix to catch. The stick landed, lodged in the ground, and essentially impaled him under his tongue when he ran into it at full speed. The stick pierced about two inches into the fleshy part underneath his tongue.” Although the stick came free on its own, Phoenix had a two-inch deep wound under his tongue that required a trip to his veterinarian for cleaning and stitches. “I was with Phoenix when the veterinarian was working on him and almost passed out.” Myers said. “I literally had to take myself out of the room.”
That night, Phoenix was in a lot of pain. He shook, curled up into a ball, and wanted to be in Myers’ lap. After a good night’s sleep, however, Phoenix began acting like his perky self. “The very next day, he was gung-ho to play fetch again.” Myers said. “But no more sticks.” A few days later, Phoenix was off his prescribed pain medication and antibiotics, eating solid foods again, and the stitches in his tongue had dissolved.
“He’s perfectly healed now,” Myers concluded. “It was just one of those bizarre things. It could just never, ever happen again.”
DECEMBER 2009 - Jack the Jack Russell Terrier
When Jacquelin and Lance Throneberry moved to Australia last year on a two-year business assignment, the couple feared their Jack Russell terriers might have violent encounters with some of the region’s poisonous snakes and cane toads. Until recently, carnivorous lizards did not top their list of pet health concerns.
“I took the dogs for a hike one morning and they ran ahead of me to investigate something,” said Jacquelin Throneberry of Denver, Colo. “Before I know it, I see Jack in the distance running down the hill violently shaking what looked like a big lizard. I first thought, ‘Oh no, he’s probably killed that poor lizard,’ but it soon sounded like he was fighting with it. As I got closer, I saw the lizard running up a tree alive and well. Jack was sitting further down the hill panting from exhaustion with his legs covered in blood. He was just a bunch of cuts all over—bites and claw marks.”
The lacerations on Jack’s front and hind legs required multiple stitches, several staples and treatment with a series of antibiotics. While her 10-year-old Jack Russell terrier recovered at the clinic, Throneberry, still unfamiliar with some of the local fauna, went online to identify the animal that had injured Jack. The reptile matched pictures and descriptions of goannas, large predatory lizards native to Australia.
“He’s healed up completely,” said Throneberry. “He’s a lucky dog. It could have been much worse. He gets himself in trouble because of his strong prey drive and lack of fear. When he was a puppy, he broke a leg jumping off a balcony to get a squirrel. He’s hunted snakes and has chased a variety of wildlife in Colorado including deer and a coyote. He tries to go after the geckos and water dragons here, so I think that was the context he had for attacking the goanna. Obviously, he bit off more than he could chew.”
NOVEMBER 2009 - Roscoe the Poodle
Put pets and small children under one roof and the question becomes when, not if, someone is going to eat something they shouldn’t. In Jaime Springer’s case, that someone was Roscoe, a 3-year-old standard poodle who ingested two plastic baby bottles and a wet diaper.
“We came home from shopping one afternoon to find chewed up bits of plastic and pieces of diaper all over the house,” said Springer of Great Falls, Mont. “Roscoe is huge—about 93 pounds—so it wasn’t exactly a challenge for him to pull the bottles out of the sink, but we’re still not exactly sure how he got the diaper. We have a trash can for diapers and the rotating lid is designed to seal the diapers off in a trash bag. Sometimes, if it gets too full, a used diaper will pop out when you turn the lid. That must have been what happened.”
Roscoe seemed fine at first, but his loss of appetite, followed by severe coughing and vomiting motivated Springer to bring him to the veterinarian. An X-ray revealed severe irritation in Roscoe’s stomach, but no outstanding pieces of plastic or diaper in his gastrointestinal tract. The veterinarian prescribed an antibiotic and some medication to soothe Roscoe’s stomach. In just a few days, the young poodle started showing signs of improvement.
OCTOBER 2009 - Pal the Vizsla
Pal, the 3-year-old Vizsla, loves to roam the many acres of undeveloped land next to his home. The sporting dog tracks and hunts anything that moves: small animals, insects and, unfortunately, golf carts.
“He loves to cut around our golf cart tracking the different scents,” said Lori Myers of West Palm Beach, Fla. “My son and I were driving the cart slowly, talking and enjoying the sunset, when Pal ran right in front of us. The cart hit him from behind and knocked him off balance. When he fell over, the cart rolled over his back leg.”
Pal howled in pain and stood startled with his injured leg in the air. Myers quickly drove back home with Pal in the cart and rushed him to the veterinarian’s office. Pal’s veterinarian inspected the leg and determined that, besides some minor road rash, Pal would likely be all right. The veterinarian told Myers to monitor Pal’s use of the injured leg and, on the discharge instructions, recommended “no golf for Pal for at least one week.”
SEPTEMBER 2009 - Aubie the Border Collie
Most dogs are content to simply bark at the mailman, but not Aubie. Upon delivery of his owner’s mail, the 1-year-old Border collie chose to make his presence known by running full-speed into and through a closed window.
“Aubie’s never been enamored with the mailman,” said Sharman Martin of Birmingham, Ala. “When he heard the mailman at the door, he went tearing from the back room, jumped up to the front window and shattered a pane with his left leg. I was still in the back when I heard the glass shatter, but I knew it was him. When I ran in, it looked like a crime scene: shattered glass and blood everywhere.”
Martin wrapped Aubie’s leg in a towel and rushed him to the veterinarian’s office. The veterinarian began surgery immediately, suturing a ligament and stitching four separate gashes on Aubie’s left leg. About two and a half hours later, Aubie emerged from surgery with 40 stitches and an Elizabethan collar.
AUGUST 2009 - Sandy the Abysinnian
While most cats hate water, Sandy the Abysinnian would probably agree that wetter is better than being stuck in a dryer.
“Sandy’s not afraid of anything,” said Brandan Vanderpool of Irvine, Calif. “She’ll come right up to dogs and she won’t back down. She’s really curious and she wants to know about everything. So it was no surprise that she found the dryer inviting—it’s a dark place and she had to sneak in. She knew she wasn’t supposed to go in there and she knew we weren’t watching.”
Seconds after turning on the loaded dryer, Vanderpool and his wife heard a loud repetitive thumping noise and knew something was wrong. They immediately stopped the dryer and opened it to find a frightened Sandy.
“We went to urgent care, where they took X-rays and did a full check up,” said Vanderpool. “They only found a couple of bruises and one broken rib. We were lucky that we caught it right away. They kept her overnight to make sure that she didn’t have any bruising on the brain. That was the part that scared me, but it turned out she was fine and we were able to take her home the next day. She was just fine, as if nothing happened. The only difference is that she now stays away from the dryer.”
JULY 2009 - Jojo the Boxer
While it may not be the safest practice, car chasing is a hobby many dogs, including 3-year-old boxer Jojo, seem to enjoy. Catching a car, however, is pretty much never a pleasant experience for a dog, especially when that car is a several ton delivery truck.
““I don’t know what Jojo was thinking when he bit that tire,” said Rebekah Hodges of Jacksonville, Fla. “The delivery truck wasn’t moving fast, just pulling out of the driveway, but I guess it doesn’t take much to tear out a tooth... It looked like the front of the tooth was still attached, but the back was torn out and you could see a hole in his jaw.”
Rebekah rushed Jojo to the veterinarian. Amazingly, he suffered no other injuries in the accident and was able to keep his tooth. He has made a full recovery, but Rebekah reports that he has ceased chewing on tires, whether they are moving or not.
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