Point Breeze dog eats thousands in cash, garners national attention

When Carrie Law heard her husband yelling from across their Point Breeze home, she quickly came running — only to find $4,000 in cash strewn about the room, with much of it torn into pieces.

“Cecil ate the money!” her husband yelled.

Their dog, Cecil, a goldendoodle, had discovered the money that had been sitting on their counter for only about 30 minutes, said Law, 33.

Law and her husband, Clayton, 34, had taken the money out from the bank for a landscaping project. The contractor wanted cash.

“We even found bits in his water bowl,” she said.

Courtesy of Carrie and Clayton Law

Carrie Law cleans some of the pieces of the bills found in Cecil’s waste.

Law said the couple had to figure out what to do next.

“Cecil’s just like the sweetest dog,” she said. “He’s never done anything like this in his life.”

They realized that Cecil, who is 7 years old, had eaten around $2,000 on Dec. 8. The couple would have to wait for him to pass the bills so they could reconstruct them.

“We aren’t mad — we just adore this dog,”she said. “It was just absurd.”

They called the vet, who reassured them that as long as Cecil continued to act, eat and go to the bathroom normally, he would be fine.

“Obviously, we were worried … once we figured out he had eaten a decent amount of money,” Law said.

She said she and her husband started Googling “Dog ate money what should we do?”

Their bank said if they would be able to piece enough of the serial numbers together, they would be able to get some of the bills replaced. They started to collect the pieces over the next three days.

“It was a gross process; we had to wash everything,” Law said. “(Cecil) threw up at like 2 a.m., and we kind of collected that … washed it all off and dried it.”

Law’s husband followed Cecil around the yard when he was doing his business to collect more pieces.

Overall, Law said she was surprised by how many pieces fit together. It turned out that Cecil hadn’t chewed the money very much.

“It took a lot of time,” she said.

Cecil’s incident has garnered national attention in outlets like The Washington Post, CNN and USA Today after a video the couple posted on Instagram attracted thousands of views and likes.

“It’s so silly to me that so many people have cared about this story,” Law said. “You just kind of have to laugh about it.”

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A post shared by Carrie Law (@ooolalaw)

Though the national attention was shocking and unexpected, she said it was nice to be a part of a fun news story, as she said many are “depressing.”

They plan on framing some of the remaining bills as a memento of the ordeal.

The story was even more special to the couple, she said, because Cecil had a seizure earlier in 2023. The couple didn’t know how longer he would be around.

She said they’ve always joked that there’s a human inside of Cecil.

“We’re just happy the story’s making people laugh,” Law said.