Search Here

A Jack Russell Terrier had to undergo a two-hour emergency operation after swallowing 111 pennies when his Manhattan owner wasn't looking.

Jack, the 13-year-old dog, was rushed to the vet last week when he suddenly became very ill after dining on pennies.

Doctors at BluePearl Veterinary Partners in New York then quickly and carefully removed the $1.11 in pennies from Jacks's stomach during a two-hour life saving operation.

Jack's owner, Tim Kelleher who works on Wall Street, said that the coins were removed five at a time from his beloved pooch's stomach, according to the New York Daily News.

Jack had apparently accidentally gobbled up the copper coins while licking up the remains of a leftover bagel on Kelleher's desk.

Kelleher said he knew something was wrong when his dog started vomiting.  He said after Jack's condition grew progressively worse over 24 hours, he decided to take his pet to a nearby veterinary office where an x-ray showed the cause of the dog's ailment.  The X-ray revealed 111 pennies lodged inside the Jack's stomach. Vets said the zinc in the coins posed a very serious threat to Jack's kidneys and liver.

"He's like a voracious Tasmanian devil - if there's food, he's got to get it," said Kelleher, who lives and works in the Financial District, told the Daily News.

"He climbed on my desk to get at the bag with the bagel and knocked the change all over the floor. While he was licking up the crumbs, he swallowed the pennies," he added.

"If Jack would not have had the pennies removed the consequences would have been fatal," Dr. Amy Zalcman, who helped treat the white-furred terrier, told the Daily News.

 Kelleher told the Daily News that he let Zalcman keep the pennies once they were removed from his dog's stomach, adding that his pet pooch is showing great recovery and absolutely no ill effects from his $1.11 meal.

"He's doing great," Kelleher told reporters. "He's driving me crazy again."