Aug. 20 (UPI) — The 18th annual Hambone Award, presented to the most unusual pet insurance claim of the year, was given to a golden retriever who spent 72 days lost in the mountains.
Nationwide Pet Insurance said Milo Bear was spooked by a sudden noise during a Christmas Day trip to the mountains near Lake Tahoe in California and fled up a cross-country ski trail.
Milo was missing for 72 days before turning up at a shelter, extremely thin but otherwise unharmed. He was able to return home to his family after four days in a veterinary hospital.
“The joy of being reunited with a beloved pet after weeks of uncertainty is hard to put into words. Milo’s journey reflects the determination of his family, his own incredible resilience, and the importance of getting pets the care they need when the unexpected happens. Stories like his are exactly what the Hambone Awards were created to celebrate,” Emily Tincher, chief veterinary officer at Nationwide, said in a news release.
The Hambone Award, which “recognizes the most unusual pet claim of the year,” is named in honor of a dog who became trapped inside his owner’s refrigerator and ate an entire ham, leaving only the bone behind.
Henry, a Colorado Labrador retriever who chased a tennis ball into his yard and punctured his paw on a rake, was one of this year’s runners-up. The other runner-up was a cat named Hobbes who ran under his owner’s garage door as it was closing and became pinned.
Other nominees from this year included twin beagles Diesel and Matilda, who ate an entire two-tiered red velvet cake; a Bernese mix named Capone who swallowed an entire intact baseball cover; a Goldendoodle named Hampden who ate the skin off a vintage Ugandan drum; and borzoi dogs Lilliya and Noelle, who got into double mischief when Lilliya swallowed an entire bottle’s worth of Rimadyl and then Noelle feasted on her sister’s vomit.
All of the pets have since made full recoveries.
