Round Bone Redux

The FDA recently adopted the slogan “No Bones About It” for its campaign to educate pet owners about the dangers of giving bones to pets. While veterinarians have long warned of the potential danger of bone-chewing, it seems that this advice is not always appreciated. Many pet owners have indignantly told me they have given their dogs bones for years and never needed to visit the veterinarian for a bone-related injury. I’m glad to hear they haven’t had any problems. At the same time, I know from looking at the claims we receive that not all of our policyholders have been so lucky.

In its list of reasons to avoid giving bones to dogs, the FDA includes “bone gets looped around your dog’s lower jaw.” Sound familiar? VPI-insured Toby, a spaniel mix and 2009 Hambone Award® nominee, got a round bone stuck around his lower jaw last year. His subsequent pet insurance claim was selected as the most unusual claim submitted in May 2009.

Fast forward about a year, and it turns out that Toby’s claim, while no doubt bizarre, may not have been as unusual as first suspected. In August we received a claim stating: “bone stuck between teeth.” I called Karen Naughton of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to find out how a bone resulted in a $400 veterinary bill for her schnauzer, Domino.

Karen described the bone as a round beef bone about the size and shape of a hockey puck. She gave the bone to Domino to keep him occupied while she ate dinner. In about five minutes, Domino had chewed out the marrow and somehow managed to get the bone stuck behind his lower incisors and around his jaw. This is when things got interesting.

“He was yelping and running around,” said Karen. “Instead of holding his mouth open, he just tried to bite harder, causing the bone to dig into his gums. He started to bleed and, in his continued attempt to get the bone off of his jaw, was rubbing his face into the carpet. It was a mess!”

When Karen’s attempts to manually remove the bone only frustrated Domino more, she took the scared schnauzer to the emergency room. The veterinarian had never seen anything like it before. After failing in his own attempt to manually remove the bone, he had to sedate Domino and saw the bone off of the dog’s jaw. Besides some minor lacerations to his gums, Domino was fine once the bone had been removed.

While talking to Karen, I was struck by the similarities between her story and the story of Toby. The two accounts were almost word-for-word. In both situations, the pet owners attempted to remove the round bone, only to further frustrate their frightened pooches. In both situations, the veterinarian had never seen a similar accident and had to sedate the dog in order to saw the bone off of the jaw. Perhaps the most striking similarity of the two stories was that neither Karen nor Toby’s owner ever imagined that something as seemingly harmless as a bone could cause so much trouble.

According to the FDA’s information on potential bone-related injuries, things could have been a lot worse for Karen and Domino. Besides getting looped around a dog’s lower jaw, bones can cause broken teeth, intestinal blockage, lacerations and peritonitis. While some people feel raw bones are less likely to splinter, and therefore safer than cooked bones, they may actually be more dangerous, since they can spread infectious agents such as salmonella or E. coli to people and pets.

Despite any advice to the contrary, I’m sure many pet owners will continue to give bones to their dogs, and I’m sure some pet owners will attempt to do so in a responsible fashion, but I also think that many pet owners are unaware that bone-chewing presents these potential hazards. We all want to do what’s best for our pets, and maybe that simply starts with being informed.