A dog, who ingested 111 pennies behind its owner's back, has undergone a successful emergency surgery to recover the 'loot'.
Jack, a 13-year-old Jack Russell terrier, had to have the stashed loot removed by doctors from a speciality and emergency veterinary hospital here on Saturday.
Jack allegedly stashed the loot when his owner, Tim Kelleher, was not looking.
The dog almost made a clean getaway until the heavy plunder caused him to develop an upset stomach and vomit, which exposed some of the evidence, doctors at BluePearl Veterinary Partners here said.
When Kelleher took Jack to veterinarians, they took X- rays and found what looked like additional foreign objects inside of the dog and recommended emergency endoscopy to remove the objects.
Endoscopy is a non-invasive procedure using a scope with a camera, which is safer and easier to recover from than surgery.
Once inside with the scope, Dr Suliman Al-Ghazlat, an internal medicine specialist, was able to extract four to five coins at a time until all 111 were removed, the hospital said in a press release.
The procedure to retrieve the heisted currency lasted approximately two hours. During that time, Jack was monitored closely under anaesthesia.
Besides the danger of blocking the intestines and creating gastrointestinal problems, pennies minted after 1982 are mainly made out of zinc and are considered to be toxic to pets. The zinc inside of pennies can cause damage to the kidneys, liver and red blood cells.
"Early and safe removal was absolutely imperative to Jack's health," said Dr Amy Zalcman, a senior emergency doctor at BluePearl, who oversaw Jack's treatment.
"If Jack would not have had the pennies removed, the consequences would have been fatal."
"He's doing great," Kelleher said yesterday. "He's driving me crazy again," The New York Daily News quoted him as saying.
