diff --git a/barbicanclient/base.py b/barbicanclient/base.py
index 168ece12..738526bb 100644
--- a/barbicanclient/base.py
+++ b/barbicanclient/base.py
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ def validate_ref(ref, entity):
     try:
         _, entity_uuid = ref.rstrip('/').rsplit('/', 1)
         uuid.UUID(entity_uuid)
-    except:
+    except Exception:
         raise ValueError('{0} incorrectly specified.'.format(entity))
 
     return True