Nationwide Pet Insurance announced that voting is now open for its 17

 annual Hambone Award. Each year for the last 17 years, Nationwide awarded the Hambone Award to the pet whose unexpected, unusual, or outrageous event brought the into the veterinary clinic to highlight how important pet insurance is for caring for and protecting pets.

"Pets always find new ways to surprise us! The Hambone Award shines a light on those unpredictable moments and the amazing teams who help pets recover," said Emily M. Tincher, DVM, chief veterinary officer at Nationwide, in an organizational release.

 "We're proud to support the pet families and veterinary teams who turn these unexpected adventures into stories of recovery and relief."

According to the organizational release, The Hambone Award is named after a dog, who was insured by Nationwide, got stuck in his family’s refrigerator and ate their entire holiday ham as he wanted to be rescued. Once he was found, the only thing left from the ham was the hambone licked clean, and a case of hypothermia.

Bella, a Havanese dog from Illinois, who helped herself to eating a flower arrangement, leaving her covered in green, blue, and yellow pollen, plus an upset stomach.

Boone a golden retriever from new Jersey, who took a hot piece of grilled chicken and began to choke on the bone immediately, plus suffered burns to his mouth.

Duke, a lab-mix from Ohio, swallowed an entire spatula after licking peanut putter off it. Duke’s family was advised by Nationwide’s VetHelpline to go to a veterinary practice for x-rays, revealing the utensil in his stomach and after an endoscopy, he was back to his usual self.

Foxtrot, a Great Dane from Texas, stole a full turkey leg from her owns hands the day after Thanksgiving, and swallowed it whole. Although presenting as okay, the VetHelpline confirmed that the bone needed to be removed.

After eyeing up a whole in her yard for days, Hazel, a Dane-St. Bernard mix-breed from New Jersey, decided to finally pounce on it, showing everyone that it was a groundhog hole. Thanks to a blood spot trail, her family noticed a bite on her paw.

Maddie, a bulldog from Virginia, fell ill and no one in her family could tell why, until they noticed he began spitting up bone-like objects. Turns out, Maddie had helped herself to a preserved alligator the family had noticed mysteriously vanished from the house. Worrying about potential toxic chemicals in the taxidermy, Maddie’s family made a quick visit to the veterinarian.

When Ozi’s, a Yorkie from California, family was away, he decided the TV remote would make a good snack. However, when the family only found one mangled batter instead of 2, they immediately brought him to the veterinarian. The family eventually found the batteries under the couch.

Salem, a shorthair cat from New York, was the first suspect when his family could not find a missing AirPod. Suspecting he swallowed it, the family performed musical tests, utilized Find My IPhone, and took 2 trips to the veterinarian, However, the missing AirPod was never found.

After cicadas emerged in his yard one summer, Wash, a mixed-breed dog from Tennessee, could not resist and ate some of them, resulting in a sudden loss of appetite and a ‘smelly situation. After going to see the veterinarian, Wash was put on a bland diet and according to Nationwide, will be sticking to eating more conventional snacks.

Ziya, a Belgian Malinois from California, stepping into the middle of a bull fight when he bravely jumped in to protect his humans from an angry bull on the loose. His action led to him being kicked in the jaw which dislodged a tooth. 

Each of the nominated pets for The Hambone Award made full recoveries and were reimbursed for the eligible veterinary expenses. Voting opened on August 5, 2025, and will close on August 12, 2025. The grand prize winner selected will receive the Hambone Award trophy and a gift card to Petco. Along with the grand prize winner, 2 runner ups will also receive Petco gift cards.

Last year, Luca, a Shiloh shepherd from Massachusetts, took home the grand prize after he dismantled his owner’s kitchen. Luca, like other dogs, was not a fan of spending time in his crate so to make him happy, his owner let him run around the house while she ran a quick errand. When she returned, she discovered Luca destroyed her cabinet which granted him easy access to the concealed trash can.

“I looked up the stairs and I see my cabinet gone,” Lori, Luca’s owner, said in a Nationwide news release.

 “He pulled the entire cabinet out, track and everything. The barrel and the front of the cabinet was flung over into my dining room.”

Luca was brought to the veterinarian because in the trash were some corn cobs that could cause an intestinal obstruction, but he made a full recovery.

Bull-fighting pup and cat with taste for tech: Meet Nationwide's annual Hambone Award® finalists. News release. Nationwide. August 5, 2025. Accessed August 11, 2025. 

https://prnmedia.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bull-fighting-pup-and-cat-with-taste-for-tech-meet-nationwides-annual-hambone-award-finalists-302522168.html

Littrell A. Shepherd wins Hambone Award for destroying kitchen cabinet. DVM360. Published September 6, 2024. Accessed August 11, 2025. 

https://www.dvm360.com/view/shepherd-wins-hambone-award-for-destroying-kitchen-cabinet

Articles

Each year, the Hambone Award honors the most unexpected, unusual, and outrageous events that led to a surprise veterinary visit.

Hambone Award finalists announced 

The Cornell University Hospital for Animals is now using an Edge linear accelerator (Varian) and Siemens Naeotom Alpha photon-counting CT scanner, to enhance therapy and diagnosis for patients. According to the university, the technology is the most advanced of their kind available on the market.

“It’s important that Cornell stays on the cutting edge of what veterinary medicine has to offer. Installing crucial pieces of technology allow us to increase our patient care offerings and advance the field through research and teaching,” Susan Ruland, interim hospital director, said in a news release.

The Edge linear accelerator provides state-of-the art, noninvasive radiotherapy treatments that delivers a targeted dosage to tumors in areas that include the brain, lungs and spine.

 Although approximately 40% of veterinary schools have radiation oncology programs, few have access to such technology, according to Cornell University.

One of the other schools with an Edge linear accelerator is The University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine (UFCVM), which obtained the technology in 2021 with assistance from a $3 million gift from the Gauntt Foundation. UFCVM reported success with one of its’ first canine patients, Lincoln, soon after the Edge was first acquired.

Lincoln received radiation treatment with Edge without surrounding tissue damage. The tumor had grown in a place that rendered it difficult to remove.

Christopher Adin, DVM, DACVS, then-chair of the college’s department of small animal clinical sciences and current executive associate dean of UFCVM, noted the technology was a “game-changer” for patient care.“Lincoln’s case is a great example of a situation where we are now able to target tumors that we previously would have been unable to deliver radiation to successfully,” Adin said in a news release.

At Cornell University Hospital for Animals, the Edge linear accelerator replaced machinery installed in 2000. According to news report by the university, the Edge fast tracks treatment times—reducing a potential 20-visit radiation series for a brain tumor to 5 over the course of a week, for example. The reduction in time also decreases the time a patient spends under anesthesia, time that a client spends with veterinary appointments, and opens treatment times for other animals in need of medical care.

Tracy Gieger, DVM, DACVR, DACVIM, clinical professor in the Section of Radiation Oncology at Cornell, noted in the report that the shorter treatment time is because the radiation is more precise, while also mitigating adverse effects to surrounding tissues.“We can essentially sculpt a dose of radiation around normal tissues,” Gieger said in the report, and used a tumor next to an eye as an example. “Basically, the eye adjacent to the tumor would be getting 90% of the dose as well—now, it’s down to 10 or 20%,”

Other recent upgrades at Cornell University Hospital for Animals also include a Siemens Naeotom Alpha photon-counting CT scanner, which offers increased sensitivity, reduced radiation exposure and more powerful detection.

 “Photon-counting CT is the newest CT technology, with fewer than 50 scanners in clinical use, and this is the first installed in veterinary medicine,” Peter Scrivani, DVM, professor and chief of the Section of Imaging at Cornell, said in the release.

A photon-counting CT functions differently than typical scanners because it can detect and count each individual x-ray photon, which is a tiny particle of electromagnetic energy, according to Cornell. Images with finer details are produced, and the CT can work with the linear accelerator to create a digital surrogate of the patient. For example, if a cat must have multiple treatments, experts can use advanced imaging from the new CT alongside the robotic couch of the linear accelerator to ensure the cat is positioned exactly as it was before.

 “This allows us the kind of precision that’s within half a millimeter, which is crucial when you’re dealing with small patients or tiny tumors,” Parminder Basran, PhD, FCCPM, FAAPM, associate research professor in the Section of Medical Oncology at Cornell, said in the release.

The John and Eloise Turrel Endowment for Veterinary Oncology, the Richard P. Riney Canine Health Center, the Cornell Feline Health Center and donations from the Clays for K9 Cancer Research Benefit all contributed to the bringing both new technologies to Cornell University Hospital for Animals.

Cutting edge veterinary equipment elevates Cornell’s patient care. News release. Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. August 8, 2025.

https://www.varian.com/products/radiosurgery/treatment-delivery/edge

New linear accelerators at UF veterinary college enhances cancer treatment for animals. News release. University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine. October 26, 2021. Accessed August 11, 2025. 

https://ufhealth.org/news/2021/new-linear-accelerator-uf-veterinary-college-enhances-cancer-treatment-animals

Cutting edge veterinary equipment elevates Cornell’s patient care. Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. May 27, 2025. Accessed August 11, 2025. 

https://www.vet.cornell.edu/about-us/news/20250527/cutting-edge-veterinary-equipment-elevates-cornells-patient-care

Cornell University Hospital for Animals has installed Varian's Edge linear accelerator and a Siemens Naeotom Alpha photon-counting CT scanner to improve outcomes

New technology is advancing patient care at Cornell University

Good morning and happy Monday dvm360 readers! We are a little over a week away from our next Fetch conference, Fetch Kansas City! Join the dvm360 team, along with our amazing faculty, for a weekend full of great times, great lectures, and great food, plus network with fellow attendees and speakers. Along with all that goes on at Fetch, we will be hosting a 

, where women in veterinary medicine can grow professionally and personally. Led by Natalie Marks, DVM, CVJ, CCFP, Elite FFCP-V, Laura Neff, CPCC, and Lisa Radosta, DVM, DACVB, and sponsored by Purina and Fabletics Scrubs, the 3-hour CE course will inspire attendees with TED-style lectures and interactive labs. There is so much going on in Kansas City so be sure to sign up 

 today and secure your spot while you still can!

As we prepare to head to Kansas City, here is what you can find this week on dvm360.com:

dvm360 is recognizing Itchy Pet Awareness Month for all of August with content, interviews, and social media posts! This week, be on the lookout for some of our coverage on how to manage itchy pet month for your patients, and possibly your own pets.

 annual Hambone Awards were announced earlier this month. Each year, the Hambone Award is used to bring awareness to the importance of pet insurance by highlighting some of the more unusual claims submitted to Nationwide.

On this week’s episode of The Vet Blast Podcast presented by dvm360, our host Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, welcomes veterinary student and president of the Cornell University Student American Veterinary Medical Association and president of the Cornell University Student National Association of Black Veterinarians, Jeremy Pouncy to discuss his life as a veterinary student.

dvm360 is also celebrating our 2025 Veterinary Hero Award winners. Each day for the next week or so, one winner will be posted a day. Be sure to check the website each morning too, and if you missed who was posted already, you can already read about 

Craig Clifford, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Oncology),

The Texas A&M Veterinary Emergency Team recently returned from their 23-day deployment to the Guadalupe River where they cared for search and rescue dogs working to look for survivors following the flooding on July 4

, where the rescue dogs were able to locate 158 out of 160 missing people.

Here is a sneak peek at this week’s headlines.

Sneak Peek: dvm360 celebrates 2025 Veterinary Hero Award winners, and other news 

Ashley Bourgeois, DVM, DACVD, has built a career around making veterinary dermatology practical, accessible. A board-certified veterinary dermatologist, educator and business leader, she balances clinical rigor with an unusually public commitment to teaching, while bringing compassion and authenticity into the conversation about veterinary work and life.

Bourgeois’s path began with strong academic foundations: a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State and a DVM from the University of Missouri in 2010, followed by a small-animal rotating internship at Purdue and a dermatology residency at the Animal Dermatology Clinic in Tustin, California. She became a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Dermatology in 2014. In 2016 she relocated to Portland, Oregon, helping expand the Animal Dermatology Clinic; today she serves as an owner and board member of the practice. What distinguishes Bourgeois is how she has translated specialty expertise into broad practical education. Through her brand, The Derm Vet, she produces a podcast, lectures and social media content designed to demystify dermatology for general practitioners. She intentionally makes access to education free or highly accessible, because “I wanted to make dermatology accessible, practical, and empowering for general practitioners across the globe,” she has said. Her materials focus on clear, actionable strategies, such as cytology basics, allergy workflows, and stepwise approaches to chronic skin disease, so that veterinarians who don’t have a dermatologist on staff can still improve outcomes for itchy pets.

Clinically, Bourgeois’s interests span autoimmune skin diseases, allergic dermatitis, cytology and otology. But equally central to her work is the long view; she wants to change how practitioners feel about their work. She openly shares the realities of balancing career and family life, including the profound experience of caring for a child with serious illness, an experience that has deepened her empathy for clients managing chronic conditions. “Having to learn to navigate being a caregiver to someone with a chronic illness has made me even more empathetic to our clients,” she said in a dvm360 interview, noting that flexibility and compassion in treatment plans often produce better adherence and outcomes.

Her contributions have been recognized across the profession. Bourgeois was VMX Speaker of the Year and received the Bright Minds Champion award for wellness, honors that reflect both her educational reach and her advocacy for clinician well-being. She consistently emphasizes sustainable career practices, urging colleagues to seek balance and to build workplaces that support mental health and longevity in practice.

Advice from Bourgeois to early-career veterinarians is practical and encouraging: see as many cases as possible, ask questions, and embrace different clinical styles. “Getting experience with different veterinarians helps mold you into a future clinician,” she says. That philosophy to learn broadly, share generously exemplifies her work as an educator and mentor.

Whether she’s lecturing at conferences, recording a podcast episode, or consulting on a challenging case, Bourgeois’s influence is defined by clarity, generosity and authenticity. Her combination of clinical excellence, accessible education and commitment to professional wellness make her not only a leader in veterinary dermatology but also a model for how specialists can uplift the whole profession. For those reasons and many more, Ashley Bourgeois is a deserving recipient of the dvm360 Veterinary Heroes Award in Dermatology.

The 2025 class of dvm360 Veterinary Heroes will be honored at a celebratory luncheon in the dvm360 Fetch Kansas City Conference. 

Click here learn more or register for the event.

Ashley Bourgeois, DVM, DACVD, wins the 2025 dvm360 Veterinary Hero award in the dermatology category.

2025 Veterinary Heroes: Ashley Bourgeois, DVM, DACVD (Dermatology)

Craig Clifford, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Oncology), shared during his interview with dvm360 that he was one of the last students accepted into his veterinary school class. However, instead of letting it get to him, he says it gave him a chip on his shoulder to stick it to those who doubted his place to be there. Thanks to the amazing people surrounding him in school, he ended up finishing within the top 3 students of his class. From his time in graduate school, he knew he wanted to become an oncologist, and he became the first graduate from Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine to go to the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine in Philadelphia. Clifford credits his career and where he is today to those who uplifted him.

“A lot of that came from the backs of others who helped support me and push me forward, my parents as well. My dad died before I got into veterinary school, but my mom had always supported me even when I didn’t think I could, because we didn’t realize until my son came along that I have ADHD [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder]. So I never did well in school early on, and it wasn’t really until college and graduate school that it just seemed to click, because I could feel [and] focus on a field I loved. So my mom was a huge supporter of that.”

Now Clifford pays it forward by uplifting other professionals in
the field. He encourages upcoming veterinary oncologists to get out there because it is important to uplift the new generation. After all, when those known in their field leave it one day, there need to be good people to take their place. Because of this passion, he is able to do the career he loves and spend more time with those he loves.

“I’m trying to refocus myself, to not be as career driven and to start to spend more time at home,” Clifford concluded. “Now my turn is to take a step back, and that’s why, as we discussed, it’s promoting others. I’ve given Fetch and dvm360 a ton of other oncologists, and that’s what we should be doing is promoting the next generation and helping them succeed. That’s exactly what it is: not tearing down others but helping others.”

The 2025 class of dvm360 Veterinary Heroes will be honored at a celebratory luncheon in the dvm360 Fetch Kansas City Conference. 

Craig Clifford, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Oncology) wins the 2025 dvm360 Veterinary Hero award in the internal medicine category.

2025 Veterinary Heroes: Craig Clifford (Internal Medicine)

In managing a case that involves both me and another veterinarian, our assessments and plans sometimes differ. When the pet owner asks me, “Why didn’t the other vet tell me that?”, the awkward dance begins. How can I support my protocol without undermining my colleague or confusing our mutual client?

If you ask 10 different veterinarians how they would handle a case, you will likely get 10 different answers. Although these differences may be more nuanced than substantive, clients tend to notice every little variation. Our profession has standards of practice, but inconsistencies in medical advice do happen. “This occurs quite often,” Mia Cary, DVM, CEO of Cary Consulting in Greensboro, North Carolina, said. “It’s not only GP [general practitioner] to GP, but it can also occur when clients are going back and forth between a GP and a specialist for a specific issue.”

Disagreeing doctors might work together at the same hospital or may be housed at competing practices. Whichever the case, she added, “Lead with empathy and humility—empathy for the client and for the other medical professional.”

Health care disagreements permeate human medicine too. Results from a recent study of human hospitals found that the way individual medical personnel assess and prioritize harms and benefits and how they interpret moral rules and obligations can vary greatly and confound medical decision-making.

The patient stands to lose. Research at a human teaching hospital in Switzerland found that 4 in 10 such conflict scenarios affect patient care.

On occasion, the conflict is not even real, according to Barbara Bower, VMD, associate veterinarian at South Bay Veterinary Group in Boston, Massachusetts. The client might recite another veterinarian’s diagnostic impressions or treatment protocol that does not line up with yours. However, she cautioned, owners can be dubious raconteurs. “Sometimes the client has it all wrong,” she said.

The owner might not have understood the other veterinarian’s explanation. Or maybe the emotions of dealing with a sick pet had distorted their interpretation of it.

True distinctions in medical approach can boil down to personal style. When Bower anticipates stylistic variations in her patients’ future care, she heads off client confusion at the outset by explaining that there is often more than 1 correct strategy.

In new puppy visits, for instance, she prepares her clients for this. “I say, ‘One vet might tell you to keep your puppy away from other dogs until his vaccine series is complete. Another vet might say it’s more important to go ahead and socialize him early on.’ Sometimes the real answer is no one knows,” she said.

In a study of ethical conflict and moral distress among 889 North American veterinarians, a majority reported feeling conflicted over what care is appropriate for a given patient.

 Whether it is a question of ethics or of straight science, the gray areas can produce discord among veterinarians. But most experts agree on one thing: Never badmouth another veterinarian, particularly to a client. It is unprofessional. It is presumptive. And if the other veterinarian is a coworker in your hospital, it can create a toxic working environment. “You wouldn’t want someone making an assumption about how you handled a case without knowing all the facts,” Paige Andersen, DVM, owner of TimberCreek Veterinary Hospital in Manhattan, Kansas, said.

Andersen, who is also a member of the board of directors of the American Animal Hospital Association, considers such instances ideal opportunities for collaboration. She suggests asking the client for permission to reach out to the other veterinarian to discuss the case and then following through. “Often, there are additional details you’ll find in talking to the other vet,” she noted.

There are valuable nuggets in the pet’s history that the client may not have disclosed to you. These include diagnostic exclusions already performed, prior treatments that had not worked, owner adherence issues, declined services, and even priceless snapshots of how an animal looked in the past week, past month, or past year before arriving at your office.

John Lewis, VMD, DAVDC, FF-OMFS, co-owner of Veterinary Dentistry Specialists in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, recalls Soupy, a Siamese cat referred to him for a nonhealing extraction site. When the site dehisced, Soupy’s veterinarian went back in and closed it with a larger flap. But then it dehisced a second time.

The veterinarian referred the patient to Lewis, who determined by the large hole that had now formed that this was not normal tissue. Lewis performed a biopsy on it and found it to be a salivary adenocarcinoma. “The owner asked, ‘Why  didn’t my primary vet biopsy it?’” Lewis explained that the tissue had remolded over time, which gave him, but not the previous doctor, the luxury of visualizing a tissue gap that was bigger than it should be.

Whenever small animal veterinarian Amelia Knight, VMD, is asked why earlier veterinary advice differs from hers, she tries to bring harmony to discord. She will often tell the owner, “That’s music to my ears that you’re remembering the previous recommendation. I can’t speak to what your other vet saw before or based their decision on, but I can see how disconcerting it is to hear one thing from me and something else from another doctor.”

Knight, who also runs the veterinary consulting firm Life Boost with Amelia in Charlotte, North Carolina, then redirects the client to the here and now, the shared common goal, and the need to move forward. And do not be afraid to continue an ongoing protocol instituted by an earlier veterinarian—even if it would not have been your first choice—if it is working well enough or if the client is comfortable with it; sometimes the benign status quo is the way to go.

Keeping mindful of the distinction between a disagreement and a mistake, you might consider speaking directly to another veterinarian whom you believe has erred in one of your cases. For those rare instances of medical malpractice, there are protocols for reporting. Always maintain a professional stance.

When Lewis is called on to repair iatrogenic jaw fractures in patients who are referred to him, he is careful to save face for his colleagues. He shares with owners his own experience of accidentally fracturing a jaw during a tooth extraction years ago while working in general practice. And he explains to them that jaw fractures are an inherent risk when extracting firmly rooted teeth. Whenever an owner challenges him on why their regular veterinarian tried to pull that tightly bound tooth in the first place, he said, “I explain to them that their vet must have brushed up on their veterinary dentistry, because some firmly rooted teeth need to come out.”

Healthy discourse—and dissent—can promote individual clinical growth as well as progress in our profession. But it must be done with care, Andersen cautioned. “Always acknowledge your client’s concerns, but also be supportive of the other veterinarian,” she advised.

1. Gert B, Culver CM, Clouser KD. Bioethics: 

2. Cullati S, Bochatay N, Maître F, et al. When team conflicts threaten quality of care: a study of health care professionals’ experience and perceptions. 

. 2019;3(1):43-51. doi:10.1016/j.mayocpiqo.2018.11.003

3. Moses L, Malowney MJ, Boyd JW. Ethical conflict and moral distress in veterinary practice: a survey of North American veterinarians. 

. 2018;32(6):2115-2122. doi:10.1111/jvim.15315

Veterinarians sometimes clash on a case, and how they handle their conflicting approaches affects the patient, the owner, and one another