Hungry dog eats £250 charity cash

Elliot Furniss

A HUNGRY hound has caused chaos for some Essex fundraisers after tucking in to more than £250 of banknotes.

Guide dog Lewis lives with Claire and Gordon Webb in Holland Road, Frinton, but is in the doghouse after eating or destroying nearly all of the cash that was collected from the public over Christmas.

Now the shreds - and the rest of the notes that were fully digested - have been bagged up and the couple are hoping that they can be substituted.

Mr Webb is a member of the Frinton Rotary Club and is in charge of organising the Christmas fundraising.

He said: “We had been collecting during the carol concert and had gone out on a sleigh with Father Christmas on board and I had been counting the money and sorting it for banking.

“I came down the other morning and by the coffee table there were shreds of paper. I realised what they were and I thought 'no - he's eaten all the notes'.”

Mr Webb said he had since been in touch with the Bank of England about replacing the notes, and he was relieved to be told that it happened “all the time”.

He added: “I just have to send it all off. Lewis will eat anything. When they're working, they behave impeccably, but as soon as they're off duty they're dogs again.

“At the time I was very cross with him - I did a bit of a 'Gordon Ramsay' and he was a bit sheepish for a while, but then he got round me.”

The cash is collected by the group every Christmas and is partly used to organise charity events during the following year while some of the money is donated to local groups.

Mr Webb said there had been an emergency whip-round at the Rotary Club while he had promised to underwrite any shortfall if the notes could not all be replaced.

Mrs Webb had a stroke about five years ago and was left blind. The couple have an 11-year-old daughter Louise and Mrs Webb was paired with Lewis when he was just 21 months old.

Now aged five, Lewis has become an invaluable companion and Mrs Webb said he was normally very well behaved.