Dog Wins Award for Eating BBQ Skewer

A West Virginia dog that ate a barbecue skewer has won a national competition for most unusual pet insurance claim. The Bluefield Daily Telegraph reports that the 5-year-old Boxer named Curtis beat out 11 other pets in online voting for Nationwide's Hambone Award, named in honor of another dog that ate a ham while waiting to be rescued from a refrigerator. Curtis ate the skewer during his owner's daughter's birthday party in 2014. The dog was taken to a veterinary hospital, but doctors couldn't find the skewer. Curtis returned to the vet a few months later. This time, veterinarians found the skewer when they operated to remove a baseball-sized mass between the dog's stomach and pancreas. Curtis is now doing fine. (More weird news stories.)