Thirty minutes later, Law was surprised to seek out tiny items of chewed-up payments strewn throughout the ground. In a panic, he hollered for his spouse, Carrie Law.
“He was shouting, ‘Cecil ate $4,000!’” Carrie recalled about that Dec. 8 afternoon.
“I ran in, thinking I had to have heard him wrong, but when I saw the mess, there was no doubt,” she stated. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Cecil had really done it.”
Cecil is a 7-year-old goldendoodle that has lived with the Laws since he was a puppy. For 5 years, he had the run of the home till the arrival of the Laws’ son, Rory, now 2.
“Cecil’s a goofy guy and he’s very particular — you could leave a steak on the table, and he wouldn’t touch it because he’s not food motivated,” stated Carrie, 33. “But apparently he is money motivated.”
Cecil had not been taken with issues on the counter up to now, nor had he torn up objects that have been up there.
“He has never really done anything bad before, so we were more shocked than angry,” added Clayton, 34. “We couldn’t believe it. We looked at each other and said, ‘What are we going to do?’”
While Cecil skulked away to take a nap on the lounge couch, the Laws referred to as their vet to see if they need to deliver him in to be checked out for consuming the stack of money.
“Given his size of 100 pounds, we were told as long he was eating and drinking and going to the bathroom, he should be fine,” Clayton stated. “If he were a small dog, it would have been a different story.”
He and Carrie then determined to salvage what they might.
They gathered up the torn payments and have been capable of piece collectively about $1,500, Carrie stated. She then referred to as the financial institution and advised a supervisor what had occurred.
“I felt like a kid who says, ‘The dog ate my homework,’” she stated. “I was surprised when they said they’d seen similar things happen multiple times — that maybe dogs liked the particular smells on money.”
The supervisor defined that the financial institution would take again any payments that had been taped along with the total serial numbers seen on the back and front, Carrie added. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing additionally usually requires that a minimum of half of every invoice is salvageable.
“Cecil was sitting on the sofa full of $2,500, and we knew there was only way to get that money back,” Carrie stated.
Late that first night time, Cecil vomited up a few torn tons of, Clayton stated, however he and Carrie must be affected person and summon their humor to retrieve the remainder of the payments.
Clayton intrepidly donned a masks and gloves, grabbed a bunch of plastic baggage and accompanied Cecil on his yard rounds over the subsequent two days because the canine relieved himself.
He and Carrie then sifted by way of the canine’s droppings and washed the torn bits of payments with dish cleaning soap in a utility sink.
“I never thought I’d be able to say I’ve laundered money, but there is apparently a first time for everything,” Carrie stated.
“Here we were, waiting for the dog to go to the bathroom so we could get the rest,” Clayton added. “We had to laugh at the absurdity of it.”
He and Carrie determined that if they might discover humor within the state of affairs, others would, too.
The Laws made a video with the images they’d snapped of their canine’s $4,000 meal, then posted it on Instagram.
“This is Cecil,” it begins. “He has never done anything bad in his life until he ate $4,000.”
The video of them washing money and patiently piecing it collectively like a jigsaw puzzle has been favored greater than 175,000 instances.
After the Pittsburgh City Paper wrote about what occurred, Carrie stated she snuggled up subsequent to Cecil and browse the piece to him as a bedtime story.
“We couldn’t be mad at him — he’s a very lovable dog,” she stated. “People often tell us there’s a human trapped inside our dog.”
She and Clayton have been capable of retrieve about $1,800 from Cecil’s yard deposits, boosting their complete to $3,550.
Carrie stated she plans to ship the washed remnants they couldn’t piece collectively to the Treasury Department, within the hope they could get a few of it again.
If not, the Laws stated it’s the worth they have to pay for a household story they’ll go right down to their son.
“We’ve kept at least one of the torn-up bills so we can do a piece of artwork and frame it to commemorate the entire situation,” Carrie stated.
“Not that we’d ever forget,” she rapidly added.
