Pet insurers can tell you some of the weird ways that animals can get themselves injured. VPI Pet Insurance has honoured some of these claims in its annual ‘Hambone Awards.’ Here is a sampling of nominees for the 2012 and 2013 Hambone Awards:
Road Trip
Leann Munro of Rio Linda, California had a tough time keeping her adventurous cat, Pebbles, inside. One weekend, while Munro was away, Pebbles got out of the house to play, embarking upon a harrowing road adventure.
Filled with wanderlust, the cat hitched a 15-mile drive to neighbouring Carmichael, California – inside the engine of a car.
A good Samaritan found the injured feline in his shed and dropped Pebbles off at a nearby vet. The cat’s wounds included a broken jaw and deep lacerations as a result of being trapped in the car’s alternator belt.
Munro was able to track down the whereabouts of her kitty because she had a microchip implanted in her pet. Insurance covered the medical bills.
The Deadly Dough Diner
The roommate of a man in Denver, Colorado prepared bread dough in the kitchen for 24 dinner rolls, which she placed on the heating vents on the floor of the room to help the dough rise. Her closed door did not deter Dingo, a two-year-old mixed breed dog, from pushing open the door and devouring all 24 dinner rolls.
Alas, Dingo’s tummy acted as a kind of ‘artificial oven,’ providing a warm, moist environment for the yeast to ferment. The fermented yeast is metabolized to ethanol (alcohol), resulting in alcohol poisoning and potential stomach bloat. In Dingo’s case, the dog nearly lost all muscle control and was unable to stand for more than a second without falling or running into something.
Although the vet’s prognosis wasn’t good, Dingo pulled through and the insurer footed the vet bills.
The Antler Eater
After reading about the benefits of chew toys over bones for dogs, a Delaware woman decided to give her Labrador retriever, Ryder, a special form of chew toy – an elk antler dog chew.
The elk antler was a hit, and rare was the day when the family didn’t hear Ryder working away on the dog chew. Until the say when the antler disappeared.
After checking all over the home, the panicked dog owner concluded the only place the antler could have gone was inside Ryder’s belly. She took Ryder to the vet, who diagnosed Ryder’s diarrhea as colitis due to the elk antler causing irritation to his intestines.
“The veterinarian had seen other incidents with obstructions, but never an elk antler chew toy,” the owner noted.
The Garage Door Episode
Scott Carter of San Rafael, California finished his Saturday gardening one day, put his tools away in the garage and closed the garage door behind him. Two minutes later, his neighbour called to urge him to open the door, because their seven-pound Himalayan cat, Ariel, was trapped under the garage door howling.
Ariel was diagnosed with liver damage as a result of the garage door’s pressure on her abdomen. The cat was stable enough to be discharged from the hospital the next day.
How the cat came to be trapped under the garage door remains a mystery – especially since the door had a sensor to prevent the door from closing if there was an obstruction. Later checks found that the sensor was set to detect objects two feet off the ground, and Ariel didn’t measure up.
“Our best guess is that Ariel was sitting under one of the cars in the garage and at the last second decided to make a break for it and run into the front yard,” the owner said.
