Cecil had never climbed onto the counter in his seven years of life.
That day, he did. Clayton Law, from Pennsylvania, had left an envelope with 4.000 dollars in cash on the kitchen counter to pay for a new fence. When he returned, he found his 45-kilo poodle standing on top of a pile of shredded bills, as if he had chewed up paper confetti. Still in shock, they thought the worst was over.
It wasn’t. In the middle of the night, they were awakened by the sound every dog owner recognizes immediately: retching. When Clayton got up to clean, he spotted pieces of 100- and 50-dollar bills among the vomit. It was only the beginning. Over the following days, the couple inspected every one of Cecil’s bowel movements, searching for fragments of money, washing them and assembling them like a macabre puzzle on the table.
The bank explained something unsettling: they needed to preserve more than 50% of each bill in order to exchange it. After three days of searching, with increasingly smaller returns, they decided to stop. They managed to recover 3.550 dollars. According to the bank, money absorbs food odors, and that can drive a dog with a keen sense of smell crazy. The fence is still pending, but with the bills they couldn’t save, they now plan to make a work of art.
Sadly, Cecil died years later, but his story lives on in everyone’s hearts.
