How to Make Six Cents Worth $743.59 or "Help! My Dog Ate Pennies!"

We have a Cairn Terrier that we love very much. When we chose him from his litter we did everything that we were not supposed to do when picking a puppy. We looked for the one puppy that had the most energy, ran right to us and barked at us. When we decided on him the breeder told us, "oh, that one is a little devil." We thought she was just being funny. Little did we know she meant that this dog actually had the soul of the Satan. He had the blood of Lucifer coursing through his veins and a big ol' pair of crazy eyes. We loved him instantly.

We named the little devil Sherman. He has lots of idiosyncrasies. For instance, he has consumed well over $2000 worth of leather goods during his lifetime. Bags, shoes, belts, coats, journals, wallets. All of these things serve as wonderful treats for our dog. We have learned to not leave anything around for him, but our friends have not. No matter how much we warn them, they will occasionally forget and leave their purse by the couch or their shoes by the door. We had a friend spending the night with us once and we had to inform her that she was now the owner of a belt buckle. Not a belt anymore, just the buckle. No leather is safe. Well, if it is cheap leather, it's a little safer. We are used to not having any high quality leather products in our house, because they will definitely and most assuredly be eaten.

Although we have gotten used to him eating leather, every once in a while he will surprise us with something that he looks at as food. A few years ago, we rolled about ten dollars worth of pennies. We put them in a plastic bag and laid them by the door to take to the bank later that week. Now why we would we think anything about putting pennies on the floor? Dogs don't eat pennies. They just do not eat coins. Uh huh. A few hours later, we heard Sherman getting into something. We went to see what he was tearing up now when we saw him with his head buried in the bag of rolled coins. "No, Sherman, NO!" When he hears those word, it makes him do whatever he is doing much faster and with more urgency. He started gulping pennies as fast as he could. We are running around chasing him with his mouth full of copper as he tries to swallow as much as possible. When we caught him, we saw that he had gotten into one roll. There were 22 pennies left in the roll meaning only one thing. He had eaten 28 pennies. He gave us the evil eye after we put the rest of the rolled coins on the table and called the vet. Prognosis: not good. Apparently, the zinc in pennies can be toxic after 48 hours so we needed to so something soon. "He might pass them, so just keep track." The vet also told us was a good thing that we knew how many coins he had in him because it made it easier to keep track of how many coins would come out of him. The countdown began.

Within an hour, Sherman threw up three cents. Great, 25 to go. On his walk that night, he passed four. There is nothing quite like squeezing through a sandwich baggie of dog poop in order to count pennies that may or may not be in it. It's like a really bad carnival game where you guess how many beans are in the jar to win a prize. As went to bed, we had 21 pennies unaccounted for. About four in the morning we woke up to the sound of heaving. Forced, dry, uncomfortable heaving. Sherman was trying really hard to throw up some money. All of a sudden it sounded like a someone had hit the jackpot on a slot machine. Coins falling on the floor. We turned on the light to see twelve slimy pennies in a pile next to a very tired looking dog. The next morning we were on the lookout for nine more cents. The morning walk produced none. It was one thing to squeeze a baggie of poop and count pennies. To squeeze it and get nothing just made it really really gross. It had been 24 hours and the time for action was coming. He needed to go to the vet if he did not get rid of these last pennies. A mid-day puke resulted in one penny. And the evening walk produced two more. The next day he would need to go to the vet to see how to get those last six pennies.

At the vet, they took an x-ray and we were informed of our options. The x-ray showed the last six pennies all together and stuck in the small intestine. They could go in with an endoscope and try to pull the coins out or if that failed, they would have to do surgery. The endoscope would be cheaper but less likely to be successful. "Endoscope," we told them. We sat in the waiting room as they began the procedure. Every twenty minutes someone would come out and tell us it had not worked yet. Finally, they said they would try one more time and if it did not succeed, they would do surgery. In which case, we would then be paying for the endoscope AND the surgery. Success! They were able to retrieve all six pennies. Sherman was now penny free. Tired, sore, angry and penny free.

We went up to the desk to get our bill and they told us how lucky Sherman was that he didn't have to have surgery. And how much cheaper our bill would be without it. Our bill was $743.59. Cheap. We paid the bill. They gave us Sherman. They kept the six pennies. We thought our bill should be $743.53 since they kept the coins. But no. Thanks to Sherman, we had learned how to make six cents turn into $743.59.