You'll be glad your pet is HomeSafe with you after reading this unusual tale!
Pet owners visiting the beach for a day of fun and sun can anticipate the occasional safety hazard: holes in the sand, sharp pieces of driftwood or jagged shells. Unfortunately, after a recent experience with their two-year-old Westie/poodle mix, Ranger, Brace and Janet Rohrer can add stinging Portuguese man o’ wars to their list!
“My wife had taken Ranger to the beach that day and was playing fetch with him,” recalled Brace Rohrer of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. “Ranger ran out to get the ball, but a man o’ war” – a venomous invertebrate similar to a jellyfish – “was lying next to it. Ranger pounced on the man o’ war instead of the ball and got stung on his right front paw.”
At his veterinarian’s office, Ranger received a dose of anti-inflammatory medication, an antihistamine, and a shot of pain reliever. He was one lucky dog! Aside from being extremely painful, a Portuguese man o’ war’s sting can cause fever, shock, circulatory and respiratory distress.
Rohrer’s claim for Ranger’s man o’ war incident was one of more than 80,000 claims received in the month of February by Veterinary Pet Insurance Co. (VPI), the nation’s oldest and largest provider of pet health insurance. Rohrer’s claim was considered along with other uncommon medical claims submitted in February and selected by VPI as the most unusual of the bunch.
As the most unusual claim submitted in February, Rohrer’s claim will be placed in the running for the 2010 VPI Hambone Awards. Each month, VPI employees nominate the most interesting claim submitted and in August 2010 the company will ask the public to vote for the most unusual claim of the year.
The VPI Hambone Award is named in honor of a VPI-insured dog that got stuck in a refrigerator and ate an entire Thanksgiving ham while waiting for someone to find him. The dog was eventually found, with a licked-clean hambone and a mild case of hypothermia.
Posted by Terri Perrin, Online Communications Editor
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