Brea, Calif. (October 12, 2010) – Lindsay and Anna King enjoy taking their 5-year-old English mastiff Moose to the vacant field across from their home in Green Valley, Ariz. There’s plenty of space to explore, and Moose usually doesn’t share the field with anything but the occasional grazing cow. However, during a recent visit to the field, Moose caught sight of a mule that had ventured into the area. Eager to investigate, Moose slowly crept behind the mule for a better sniff. “And that’s when the mule kicked him right in the head,” Lindsay said. “The mule kicked him so hard that if he had been a smaller breed of dog, I know Moose would have been dead.”

The Kings examined Moose immediately and found a swollen knot under the dog’s jaw and a small amount of blood from a cut on his cheek. “We got him back home and by then, his head had swollen to about twice its normal size,” Lindsay said. “He was also staring off into space, so we knew he’d need to see a veterinarian.”

With their regular veterinarian’s office closed for the weekend, Lindsay and Anna drove Moose 30 miles to a veterinary hospital in Tucson. A lengthy examination and a series of X-rays revealed that the kick to the head hadn’t resulted in any loose teeth or a broken jaw.

“We knew Moose was in a lot of pain when we got him home and he went straight for his kennel,” Lindsay said. “He just wanted to be left alone.” The Kings kept Moose quiet and comfortable, administered the pain medication prescribed by the veterinarian, and tried unsuccessfully to ice the dog’s swollen jaw (“Moose didn’t like that at all”). Three days later, Moose was back on his feet. The Kings haven’t seen the mule that kicked Moose during the few trips they’ve made back to the field since the accident, but the mastiff stays close to Lindsay and Anna just the same. “We’re going to keep Moose on his leash from now on,” Lindsay said.

Lindsay’s claim for Moose’s mule incident was one of more than 80,000 claims received in the month of September by Veterinary Pet Insurance Co. (VPI), the nation’s oldest and largest provider of pet health insurance. Lindsay’s claim was considered along with other uncommon medical claims submitted in September and selected by VPI as the most unusual of the bunch.

As the most unusual claim submitted in September, Lindsay’s claim will be placed in the running for the 2011 VPI Hambone AwardSM. Each month, VPI employees nominate the most interesting claim submitted, and in September 2011, 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 ham bone and a mild case of hypothermia.

Honorable mentions in September included a Labrador retriever with a craving for wallpaper paste, a mixed-breed dog that took a baseball to the eye, a Siberian husky that swallowed a pine cone, a domestic shorthair that got its foot stuck in a plant stand, and an English bulldog that ate an entire box of No. 2 pencils. 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 www.VPIHamboneAward.com.

Note to editors:Digital images of Moose 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.