Dogs may be Man’s Best Friend, and it’s true, that our relationship with Dogdom has, for many millennia, been like no other relationship with any other domesticated critter. We love our shaggy mutt companions, and it’s hard to imagine life without dogs. But once in a while, a beloved mutt will pull something so harebrained that you really have to wonder if we humans should be rethinking the whole thing. Something like eating $4,000 in cash. Bone appetit!
The dog’s name is Cecil. His owners said he is a well-behaved dog, and he never did anything bad until he chowed down on dozens of $50 and $100 bills.
Clayton Law put an envelope with a wad of cash on his kitchen counter in early December. He and his wife, Carrie, needed the cash to pay for a project at their home in Pittsburgh’s Point Breeze neighborhood.
Clayton said about 30 minutes later, Cecil, a 7-year-old goldendoodle, was caught red-pawed.
“I walked back into the room and then all this cash was on the ground. He’s just like this, standing there, and I’m just like oh my gosh, he ate some of this money and was in shock. I yelled to Carrie, ‘He ate the money, he ate $4,000!'” Clayton Law said.
That’s right, Cecil didn’t eat any homework. He had an appetite for $4,000. He ate a lot of the bills, and the rest of the bills were chewed up into pieces on the floor.
After a paws to reflect, the Laws took Cecil to the vet, who assured them things would be all right; and better news, they were able to recover most of the cash, at the… far end of the process. Cecil may be living the pug life, but biology always asserts itself, and the Laws regained most of their cash after… certain biological processes.
Clayton and Carrie Law checked with their vet and the 100-pound dog was OK, but they were in a tough spot because they believed he swallowed at least $2,000.
“Just trying to find numbers, we’d recover something from something he left in the yard and say oh my gosh, we have a 6 for the serial number. And try to get that taped on,” said Carrie Law. “We had to have the majority of the serial number on both sides and the bank said if you tape it, that would help. So, I brought everything in a plastic bag and brought gloves for them.”
She said they washed the chewed-up bills three or four times before bringing the money to the bank. They ended up getting all but $500 of the money back.
Cecil’s bark-becue still ended up being more expensive, per pound, than the most expensive blend at Starbarks. Still, worse things could have happened.
It’s to Clayton and Carrie Law’s credit that they were patient in the recovery process, choosing not to bite the hound that feeds them. In the end, everyone involved had a Felize Navidog, and despite the $500 loss to the mysteries of Cecil’s alimentary canal, presumably, the house project was still done.
Some dogs are heroes. Some dogs are zeroes. Cecil is obviously somewhere in between, but in the end, everything came out all right, and Cecil’s owners still love him despite his odd taste for cash.
