A Winter Recap of Unusual Pet Accidents

As we’ve mentioned here before, we receive a lot of unusual claims each month. We couldn’t possibly feature them all in detail, so we wanted to provide a brief recap of some of the bizarre accidents that brought VPI policyholders to the veterinarian’s office this past winter.

One of the reasons we share these stories is to educate pet owners on some of the less obvious dangers their pets can encounter. But just because they are less obvious, doesn’t mean they are less likely to happen.

We receive a lot of claims for dogs that eat unusual things (five pounds of cookies, acorns, 23 packages of instant breakfast powder, etc.) but lately we’ve seen some more diverse accidents. For example, we recently received claims for a Labrador that fell off a sea wall into an oyster bed during low tide, a dog that superglued his eye shut, a cat that wandered under a falling knife, another cat that was treated for eye irritation from volcanic fog, and a Boston terrier that was hit by a skier while on a walk!

However, just because we had some different types of pet accidents, doesn’t mean we didn’t see our usual sampling of random things dogs decided to eat, such as:

• A wedding ring
• Deer antlers
• A five-pound calzone and a pizza
• Rosebush
• 62 vitamin D pills
• The rabies tag from his collar
• Staples
• Metal hanger
• Tent stake
• Dental floss
• Suppositories
• Girl Scout cookies (Thin mint toxicity!)

We also saw a few other dogs have run-ins with the following wildlife:

• Deer
• Moose
• Toad
• Porcupine
• Squirrel
• Groundhog

All of that in just a few months! So even though these stories don’t belong to Hambone Award® nominees, they will hopefully educate pet owners about the unexpected nature of pet accidents and prevent future trips to the animal hospital.