Every year, VPI selects the strangest pet insurance claims that have been submitted to their company. Twelve pet nominees compete for the Hambone Award. The purpose is to emphasize how important it is to have pet insurance. The winner of the 2011 Hambone Award has been announced.
You never know what your pet might decide to do, or what trouble he or she may get into. This is a good reason to get pet insurance. That way, if your little dog gets attacked by an owl, or your big dog eats an entire tube of raw cookie dough, you can take him to see a vet, and know that at least some of the cost will be covered by the pet insurance.
VPI is one of the biggest companies that sells pet insurance. Every year, they have a contest, of sorts, called the Hambone Awards. This started when an insurance claim came to their company about a dog that got stuck inside a refrigerator. While waiting to be rescued, the dog ate an entire Thanksgiving ham. Yes, the entire thing! The dog was treated, and survived. His owner used VPI to help pay for the medical care that the dog received.
Since then, there have been plenty of other odd insurance claims sent to VPI about dogs or cats that got into situations that one would never expect them to. From these claims, twelve nominees are selected to compete for that year’s Hambone award. In order to qualify, the pet must have recovered from the incident, and the owner has to have sent the claim to VPI.
In September of 2011, people were asked to vote for the pet that they thought deserved that year’s award. More than 4,000 votes were cast. The voting period is over, and the winner has been announced.
The winner of the 2011 VPI Hambone Award is a pug named Harley. Harley got nominated in June of 2011, after eating more than 100 rocks. Harley’s owner, Lori Laverdiere of Manville, Rhode Island, noticed that Harley was experiencing some “unusual bowel movements”. She noticed that his stool consisted entirely of rocks. Harley could no longer eat, or drink, and had started vomiting.
Lori took Harley to an emergency animal hospital, where an X-ray was administered. The X-ray showed that Harley had managed to ingest more than 100 rocks, and that those rocks had clogged the poor pug’s entire intestinal tract, and filled up half of his stomach. He stayed overnight at the pet hospital, and received medication that would allow him to pass those rocks. Harley made a full recovery.
That makes Harley the Pug the winner of the Third Annual Hambone Award. Previous winners include a Labrador retriever named Ellie who ate an entire beehive, (and the bees that inhabited it). Another previous winner was a bulldog named Lulu, who swallowed fifteen pacifiers, a bottle cap, and a piece of a basketball.
Image by Ben W on Flickr