“The dog ate my homework” is probably the oldest alibi students use when they go to school unprepared. However, for a couple in Pennsylvania, their dog literally ate more than just homework, and it cost them thousands of dollars – in cash!
It was the most expensive snack! Clayton and Carrie Law had prepared cash inside an envelope to do a home improvement and left it on top of the counter. Their dog, Cecil, decided to look for a snack near the counter and chewed on the envelope.
“I just walked around the house just doing stuff and came back, and then all of a sudden, I walked in on Cecil just standing over a pile of mutilated cash, essentially,” Clayton Law laughs.
The couple said that 7-year-old Cecil never touched anything on the counter before and was usually snuggling up on the couch. Hence, their utter surprise. Clayton says they were stunned.
“So, this was like pretty shocking,” Carrie Law says of the well-behaved Cecil. “It’s just never been of interest to him.”
“It was so out of character that it just didn’t seem real,” Clayton said.
Initially, Cecil seemed fine. However, the couple was awoken in the middle of the night by a sound every dog owner recognized: the gagging of their dog that was about to vomit.
“When you hear that, you immediately just react, so I jumped out of bed and just made sure that he didn’t throw up anywhere. Not great,” Clayton said. “And then I went to pick it up… and I realized: ‘There’s a lot of like half-eaten and $100 bills and $50 bills here.’”
After that night, the following days had the couple unfortunately sifting through the dog’s droppings. Fortunately, Clayton and Carrie were able to retrieve most of the torn pieces of bills through this unpleasant task. They carefully washed them and taped them back together.
“We hit this point… of diminishing returns,” Clayton said. “We just kind of called it quits after two or three days.”
They put together as many pieces as they could. They had to have more than 50% of each bill for the bank to be able to replace them. In the end, they succeeded in recovering $3,550.00.
“It was an expensive puzzle,” Clayton laughs.
“The bank was ‘really nice about it,’” Carrie said. “They said it actually happens quite a bit because money just picks up so many scents, especially if it’s used in the food industry. They said it happens all the time. I guess dogs pick up on that — they have such a good sense of smell — and something about it just drove him crazy.”
Their original plan for a home improvement project – a new fence – did not push through. However, the Laws decided to settle for a piece of art: the remaining pieces of money they couldn’t put back together.
The couple shared Cecil’s story on Instagram, where it instantly went viral.
“We’re just happy the story’s making people laugh,” Carrie said. “I think a lot of people can relate to this because we’ve all had a pet or a kid that has done something silly like this in one way or the other, and you just can’t be mad at them. You just have to love them anyway.”