Happy the Boxer and his String of Bad Luck

The VPI Hambone Award® and the Hambone Nation blog both highlight some of the more unusual and interesting pet insurance claims we receive here at VPI, but sometimes it isn’t just an isolated claim that can be unusual—sometimes it’s a whole string of them!

One example of this is the Ruiz family and their boxer, Happy. Irene Ruiz submitted Happy’s story and what struck me was the large number of veterinary visits Happy had in such a short period of time. The average policyholder submits about two claims each year and Irene submitted five claims for happy in less than two months!

The family got Happy as a puppy in January, and other than the usual shots and routine care, things were normal.

Then in late April, Happy stopped eating and drinking. Irene took him to the animal hospital and found out he had eaten a rope toy! The rope was wrapped around his intestines and the veterinarian had to operate to remove it. If they hadn’t taken him in when they did, Happy probably wouldn’t have made it through the night.

One week after getting his staples removed from the surgery, Happy was at it again, this time eating a leather golf glove! Irene took Happy back to the veterinarian who induced vomiting and got the glove out before it could do any damage. The very next day Irene was making pork tournedos (pieces of pork wrapped with bacon and held in place by a wooden stake) when Happy decided to help himself to one—stake and all!

Irene returned to the veterinarian’s office, where the staff now knew Happy by name, and once again induced vomiting. Luckily, the entire tournedo came out, including the stake.

For most pets (and their owners), this would be a pretty tough streak of bad luck, but Happy wasn’t done yet. Four days after the pork incident, Happy was playing in the backyard with one of the Ruiz’s other boxers when he let out a painful yelp and went down. Once again, they were at the veterinarian’s office. The X-ray revealed he had broken his front paw and would need a cast. The only problem was that Happy liked to chew his way through the cast, so they had to take him back to the hospital three times to have it replaced. They even had a special collar made to prevent him from getting to the cast, but he ate through that too!

Happy has managed to stay away from the veterinarian’s office for almost three months now, and according to Irene, he is back to his usual “hurricane self.” Happy’s story is a textbook example of the benefits of pet insurance. Within the short amount of time that these visits took place, the Ruizs racked up more than $5,000 in veterinary bills. If they had started a pet savings account—which is never a bad idea, even for those with pet insurance—it is doubtful they would’ve managed to put aside $5,000 in just the few months after getting Happy. With their VPI Pet Insurance policy, they were reimbursed more than $3,500 of Happy’s treatment costs.

And by the way, did I mention the Ruiz’s have two other boxers? The total amount of veterinary costs for all three dogs over the past six years? About $30,000! Fortunately, all three of the dogs have been insured by VPI since they were puppies.