Carrie and Clayton Law’s dog Cecil is normally such a good boy. But one day in early December, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, couple were dismayed to realize their beloved pet had eaten $4,000 in paper bills.
Mr. Law had gone to the bank to withdraw the money intended to pay for yard work, leaving it in an envelope on the kitchen counter.
“It must have been 30 minutes or so later, I came back in and there’s money all over the floor—all ripped up, shredded into pieces, and lots of cash was missing, too,” he told The Epoch Times. “We were shocked because some pets destroy furniture and eat clothing and that sort of thing, but Cecil has never done anything like that.”
To their relief, the 7-year-old golden doodle they’d had since he was a puppy showed no signs of sickness, and a quick call to the vet reassured them he should be fine. But while Cecil appeared totally normal, playing happily as usual, there was still the small issue of losing thousands of dollars of their hard-earned money.
Mrs. Law rang up the bank, explaining the mishap.
“I basically said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but …’ It was the equivalent of ’my dog ate my homework‘ kind of thing. And the bank said, ’Actually, you‘d be surprised, but this does happen from time to time.’ So, they have seen this before. They were very nice about it,” she said.
Thankfully, all was not lost. So long as enough of the serial numbers were visible on both sides of the notes, the bank would replace the bills.
Mrs. Law, a customer support manager for a tech company, and Mr. Law, who helps health and fitness professionals with sales and marketing on Instagram, got straight to work.
It was a waiting game. As a big, 100-pound dog, Cecil’s vet reassured his owners that the stack of notes was unlikely to affect his digestive system. Had he been a much smaller dog, it would have been advisable to take him in, to induce vomiting. But in this case, the money was just going to have to work its way out.
“We had no idea,” Mr. Law said, “when the money came out after being digested, if it would be completely destroyed or partly intact.”
That night, Mr. Law awoke at 2 a.m. to the sound of a dog about to be sick. He got out of bed and went to make sure he didn’t vomit on the rug, instead moving him to the tiled floor. He then went to get some paper towels and a plastic bag to clean up, thinking he’d deal with it properly in the morning.
He said: “But I realized there were pieces of $100 and pieces of $50 bills in there, and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s a lot of cash here’. So, I basically put it in a plastic bag out of the way, and the next day, we started cleaning it up in the utility sink with plenty of soap and water.”
That day and the next couple of days were spent following Cecil around when he relieved himself, collecting his deposits armed with gloves and cleaning supplies. After an unpleasant scrubbing operation, washing the money multiple times until it no longer smelled, the couple began taping everything back together.
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Some bills were simply beyond saving, shredded to the point of no return. All in all, though, they managed to salvage a grand total of around $3,550. When asked what the bank did with the pieced-together notes, Mr. Law says they were, reassuringly, taken out of circulation and destroyed.
“Nobody’s going to get those bills from an ATM,” she said.
The couple stressed they couldn’t be mad at Cecil— he was just an animal “doing his thing.”
“Someone said it was three days before they were going to travel to Italy or France, and their dog ate the passports, which was obviously really stressful,” Mr. Law said. “I think for people who have pets, they get it. People who don’t have pets, they’re more like, ‘What the heck; how did this happen?!’
“It’s entertaining for both groups. Us, moving forward, we’re definitely more cautious about leaving important stuff around.”
