Dogs who survived missile silo win award

Two German shepherds trapped in an abandoned missile silo for three weeks won an award for this year’s most unusual pet insurance claim.

The Hambone Award is presented by Nationwide, the country’s largest pet insurer, with policies on about 700,000 dogs, cats and other animals.

Three-year-old Ziva and 2-year-old Zeus got through a hole in a fence in the backyard of Jessica Donges’ home in Medical Lake, Washington, near Spokane in the eastern part of the state, in March.

That began a frantic three-week search for the dogs by Donges, her husband and friends and family. They posted fliers, used social media and made regular checks at the local dog shelter.

Donges, 27, had checked around the missile silo, about 200 yards from her backyard and surrounded by a fence. She went back to the silo for one more search, more out of “desperation” and “trying to find closure” than anything else, she said.

This time, she noticed a hole in the fence and went through it into a field and down to a series of what looked like garage doors. One door was open to about her knee.

She heard barking and heaved up the door to find total darkness. Using the light on her cellphone, she found the dogs in a hole about 10 feet deep and 40 feet long filled with about 6 inches of water.

She called for help and local police and firefighters got the dogs out of the hole.