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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Lifestyle
Gloria Oladipo

‘It smelled so bad’: Pennsylvania couple recovers $3,550 after dog eats cash

A dog.
Cecil, a dog, went viral after eating $4,000 in cash. Photograph: Courtesy Carrie Law

A Pennsylvania dog shocked his owners and veterinarian after eating $4,000 in cash.

Cecil, a seven-year old goldendoodle from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is usually well behaved, according to his owners, Clayton and Carrie Law.

But last month, Cecil ate $4,000 in cash that had been sitting on the Laws’ kitchen counter, waiting to be stowed away.

“This dog, I swear to God, has never touched anything in his life,” Carrie, 33, told the Pittsburgh City Paper.

“Suddenly Clayton yelled to me, ‘Cecil’s eating $4,000!!!!!’ I thought, ‘I cannot be hearing that.’ I almost had a heart attack,” she added, referring to her husband Clayton, 34.

The money had been a withdrawal from the couple’s joint savings account, the Washington Post reported. Within 30 minutes of retrieving the funds from their local bank, Cecil had already chowed down on the cash, leaving behind just some torn bits of their money.

The panicked couple first reached out to Cecil’s vet to see if the dog needed any medical treatment. Thankfully, given his size, Cecil only needed to be monitored at home, the Post reported.

The couple then got to work trying to piece together the remaining bills that Cecil hadn’t chewed … and the ones he had already eaten.

Chewed dollar bills
Cold hard cash that Cecil, a dog, ate. Photograph: Courtesy Carrie Law

The bank told the couple that money accidents involving dogs happen frequently. As long as the serial number on the bills were visible, the bank would take back the chewed money.

While Cecil had thrown up some of the ingested money, the Laws had to recover much of the cash through Cecil’s bowel movements.

“There we are at the utility sink,” Carrie said to the City Paper. “[We were] washing this shitty money, yelling ‘Yay! Yes! We got one!’ It smelled so bad.”

Carrie told the Post that she’d “never thought” she’d be “able to say I’ve laundered money, but there is apparently a first time for everything”.

A woman wears yellow dish gloves
Carrie Law endeavors to restore money that was eaten by her dog, Cecil. Photograph: Courtesy Carrie Law

After sifting through the torn pieces – both from outside and inside Cecil, the Laws managed to tape together nearly all of the money that had been eaten. Miraculously, the couple lost only $450 from the whole ordeal.

The Laws posted a video about the incident to Instagram, where news of Cecil’s misadventures quickly went viral.

“The puzzle no one wanted to complete this Christmas,” one user wrote.

Another commenter joked that they would no longer be asking for a dog as a Christmas gift.

Cecil isn’t the only dog in recent years to ingest a large sum of money. Last year, a Florida woman also went viral after her labrador chewed up nearly $2,000 worth of cash, Newsweek reported.

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