Lost and damaged phones

How many ways can you destroy a phone?  Too many. My husband has run over phones with a vehicle. Dropped them in toilets, water tanks, etc. He has had horses step on them. He once out one in his pocket with a can of WD-40. It is not good for your phone. Once it was in his pocket and after some manure was "deposited" in his pocket as well (while combing out the horses tail - it was pretty loose), he forgot it was in there and ran a garden hose in the pocket to rinse everything. You know how that ended. We tried buying the toughest, most durable military grade phones - hoping they might survive him. He even destroyed a couple of those. 

We've always carried insurance on his phone, for obvious reasons.  It did lapse once, because they actually cancel you after your second claim in less than 12 months. We know that from experience.       

I'm sure you can understand my reluctance when he decided he wanted an iPhone. He managed to take great care of it for 8-9 months. I had tried to get him to let me install one of the apps to find his phone, but he didn't like the idea of me being able to see where he is every moment of the day (like I have time to worry about him that often). 

So in the spring of 2013, he was dragging calves in the "middle of nowhere" in the OK panhandle, when his phone went missing. We paced the ground, raked, and called the phone for hours looking for it in 3 different sets of pens, hoping he didn't lose it when they were gathering the cattle. When we didn't find it, I insisted he let me install and set up the find my iPhone and find friends apps. 

We found it in a pasture of cornstalks where he was tagging calves last spring. I found it for him from OK this summer when he lost it in a pen of calves. So you can imagine how excited I was when I got the message this afternoon, that my husband has lost his phone and I need to drop everything and run 

20 miles north of town to help him find it.  Luckily, I only had one appointment left and got another veterinarian to take care of it for me. Unfortunately, he was in an area with poor cell phone service, and it seemed that it wouldn't find it. It told me it was offline, location unavailable!  I suppose it somehow did finally post its whereabouts, because like 30 minutes later, it showed up and we were able to find it, but there were some tense moments in there. How often do you have to use irrigation circles and power poles as your landmarks.