Ziya, a Belgian Malinois from Livermore, is a finalist for Nationwide’s 17th annual Hambone Award, a prize given by the company to the most unusual pet insurance claim each year.
What event led to Ziya’s unusual pet insurance claim? His owners, the Allens, were going on an early morning walk with Ziya. They own 80 acres of land and normally rent some out to a cattle farmer, but didn’t expect for one of the cattle-herding fences to have a large breach in it.
This foggy morning, Ziya and his family encountered an unfenced bull.
“This bull starts snorting and stomping his feet,” Timothy “Tim” Allen said. “So, we’re like, ‘OK, we’re in a bullfight right now.’”
While his family began to leave before the situation escalated, Ziya moved quickly to defend them from the bull. The bull kicked the much-smaller dog in the upper jaw, but the distraction helped his owners run back to their house. Once all of them were safe, Allen inspected Ziya and saw that one of the dog’s upper canine teeth was out of place.
Luckily, the injury wasn’t too serious. Ziya was rushed to the emergency veterinarian and had the tooth removed, and has since fully recovered. The eligible veterinarian bills were covered by Nationwide.
“The insurance process was painless and low-friction,” Allen told the Livermore Vine. The 7-year-old pup came out of the encounter fully ready to continue protecting his family.
A longtime dog owner, Allen has been a member of Nationwide since 2019. After a costly incident with a previous dog and a foxtail that got infected, he chose to pursue pet insurance. That decision has proved worth it in his eyes, especially after Ziya’s bull incident.
The Hambone Award, which started in 2009, was created after a story about a dog who was trapped in a refrigerator for several hours. The dog suffered a mild case of hypothermia and ate an entire holiday ham while waiting to be rescued. Online voting for the Hambone Award winner ends Tuesday (Aug. 12).
