What Could I Pay You?

Some of you already know this story because it happened last summer and I have told it many times. But for those of you who don't know it, I thought it might be enjoyable.

What Could I Pay You?

If you had asked me last week, "What could I pay you to dig around in dog poop?", I would say, "what possible reason would I have to do that?!"

If you were to ask me the same question today, I might reply "Don't ever underestimate the possible rewards involved."

My change of heart started taking place the day my dog ate one hundred and fifty dollars off of my husband's night stand. We don't often have cash laying around, but it doesn't surprise me that the day we do have cash, Rusty would find it. See, we are talking about a dog who loves eating anything paper, especially paper/cotton mixes....like baby wipes, or dollar bills. We are also talking about a dog with intestines made of steel and some equally strong bowel muscles. Once, Rusty ate a whole sock - right off of the foot of my two-year-old brother-in-law....we found it a few days later...still whole. He has also eaten shards of glass...I thought he was a goner that time...so we were surprised to find the shards of glass a few days later right where he dropped them in the yard

This 20 pound cockapoo knows well that he isn't allowed to eat such things....at least when we are looking. But when we leave the room I guess he feels that all is fair food. He sneaks up on the bed or over to the trash can and gingerly picks out his treat, proceeds to scarf it whole...so as not to leave any evidence behind...then calmly returns to his own bed to feign sleeping when we return to the room. Ahh, but he is not as smart as his little deceptive mind thinks he is, because he might get a away with eating the dirty tissues out of the trashcan, but eating a one hundred dollar bill and a fifty dollar bill is not the sort of thing that goes unnoticed. Of course, we should have known better than to leave the bills tightly enclosed in a money clip and so haphazardly laying about inside the metal box on the night stand....humph.

I was definitely upset when I learned what Rusty had done, but I felt kind of sorry for the little guy because paper is paper to him. I thought, "well maybe this is a good lesson for us to be careful about putting too much value in money", because really folks, its just a piece of paper...its value is imposed, not inherent. And how could I blame him? After all, I have expensive taste too.

Well, it didn't take me long to get past those thoughts and begin thinking about the survival rate of products that have passed through Rusty's digestive system unscathed. I knew it was a long shot, but paper money is made to withstand abuse, so perhaps........You know where this is going, don't you?

The next few days I followed Rusty around the yard searching for anything green in his poop. I noticed all sort of other things in there (he is more deceptive than I thought), but no green paper. After three days, I gave up hope and got on with my life. I mean, really, one hundred and fifty dollars for my dignity is not a lot to pay, right?

Don't be so sure.

Yesterday I was working with my husband in the yard and something caught my eye... could it be.... I think ... it looks like.... the corner of a bill.... a "one hundred" sticking out of a clump of day-old poop. Suddenly my dignity rushed out of me like wild horses being released from captivity and I scooped up the poop and ran inside to wash out the bills.

It took a little more searching through the yard, but I eventually found and cleaned all the pieces of both bills...about ten pieces in all. Only tiny fragments were lost. I pieced them together, wrapped them in cellophane and took them to the bank. I left out the details for the bank teller, just telling her that my dog chewed the bills. But she deposited the money in my account and all is well again. Unbelievable. See what I mean about underestimating the possible rewards involved? My husband now calls Rusty "the golden goose-dog."

So ask me again what I would pay to dig around in dog poop... I guess I now know the answer...one hundred and fifty dollars is my price.....but then again, I would have done it for fifty.