Jun 22
The Tortoise and the Scare
Veterinary Pet Insurance Co.Jun. 22, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Darren Shannon
(714) 989-5616 Direct
(917) 797-4951 Cell
dshannon@petinsurance.com
The Tortoise and the Scare
Nation’s Largest Pet Insurer Selects Most Unusual May Claim
Brea, Calif. (June 22, 2010) — Tortoises aren’t the type of pet that offer their owners much in the way of surprises.For the most part, tortoises spend their days crawling slowly, eating, crawling slowly, sleeping, and crawling slowly. Emergency trips to the veterinarian don’t happen often – if they happen at all.
Brandie Keaveny of Ramona, Calif., however, found herself rushing her desert tortoise Charlie for emergency care last month. “I came home from work and was playing ball with my dog,” Brandie said. “Charlie was eating grass and came over to me when he saw me. As he got closer, I noticed there was something wrong with his head. His scalp skin was pulled forward like a sardine can, exposing bone and muscle, and skin was off his ear.”
Brandie realized immediately she’d need to get 50-year-old Charlie help fast, but with her regular veterinary office closed for the day and most after-hour emergency hospitals unwilling to treat an exotic pet, she had few options. “After an hour of calling around,” Brandie said, “I found an office that had hours until 9 p.m. and would see a tortoise. We got him in and the doctor agreed that this was the strangest thing he had ever seen with a tortoise.”
With no defensive wounds or tooth and claw puncture marks visible, the veterinarian on duty knew Charlie’s injuries had not been caused by an animal attack. Because the skin on Charlie’s scalp had been pulled forward, Brandie and the veterinarian theorized that the tortoise had been resting under a low hedge, had managed to get his head caught on a branch, and pulled his head too quickly into his shell, scraping the skin as he went.
The veterinarian prescribed a month’s worth of antibiotic for Charlie, and he wore his stitches for several weeks. Fortunately, the experience appears not to have been too traumatic for the quinquagenarian tortoise. “He acts like nothing has happened and is doing really well,” Brandie concluded.
As the most unusual claim submitted in May, Keaveny’s claim will be placed in the running for the 2010 VPI Hambone AwardSM. 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.
Honorable mentions in May included a Yorkie that was struck in the head with a frozen hamburger patty, a mixed-breed dog that licked a cactus, an English bulldog that ate steel wool scouring pads, and two unrelated incidents in which dogs fell from two and four story windows, respectively. All pets considered for the award made full recoveries and received insurance reimbursements for eligible expenses.
Stories and pictures of the Hambone Award nominees are at http://www.VPIHamboneAward.com.
Note to editors: Digital images of Charlie are available upon request. Send requests to dshannon@petinsurance.com.
About Veterinary Pet Insurance
With more than 485,000 pets insured nationwide, Veterinary Pet Insurance Co./DVM Insurance Agency is the No. 1 veterinarian-recommended pet health insurance company and is a member of the Nationwide Insurance family of companies. Providing pet owners with peace of mind since 1982, the company is committed to being the trusted choice of America’s pet lovers and an advocate of pet health education. VPI Pet Insurance plans cover dogs, cats, birds and exotic pets for multiple medical problems and conditions relating to accidents, illnesses and injuries. Optional Pet CareGuard® for routine care is also available.
Medical plans are available in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. More than 2,000 companies nationwide offer VPI Pet Insurance as an employee benefit. Policies are underwritten by Veterinary Pet Insurance Company in California and in all other states by National Casualty Company, an A+15 rated company in Madison, Wisconsin. Pet owners can find VPI Pet Insurance on Facebook or follow @VPI on Twitter. For more information about VPI Pet Insurance, call 800-USA-PETS (800-872-7387) or visit petinsurance.com.
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