Most of the time, when kids try and tell their teachers, “The dog ate my homework,” it’s the farthest thing from the truth.
But for Englewood, Colo., girl Payton, the oldest excuse in the book was putting what happened to her science project — and to her hungry dog’s tummy — a bit lightly.
Some students are voracious readers, but it turns out that Payton’s Labrador Retriever, Reggie, is a voracious eater.
“I made a volcano project out of candy and I pinned the candy to the foam base,” Payton tells CBS News Denver of the class assignment she received at school.
“It was Mt. Haleakala in Maui,” she adds.
Payton’s volcano — a mountain made of foam, candy, and plenty of straight pins — turned out to be too much temptation for Payton’s best buddy. Reggie wasted no time devouring the delicious volcano his little girl pinned together.
The shocked science student says she couldn’t believe what had happened when she discovered that her sugary assignment was gone.
“I woke up one morning and I came down to my desk and it was just all over the floor,” Payton explains.
One look at Reggie and the mystery of the missing volcano was easy to solve.
“I was very scared,” Payton says of her discovery that Reggie had scarfed down a ton of sugar — and a ton of tiny, sharp straight pins.
Payton’s family rushed Reggie to his veterinarian immediately. A quick X-ray revealed that close to 50 straight pins had traveled their way down into the Lab’s stomach. The vet was able to remove some of the pins from Reggie’s throat using an endoscope, but there was still more work to be done before Reggie was in the clear.
“We went in surgically, pulled out the one large and four of the small straight pins,” explains veterinarian Dr. Brian VanVachten.
Thanks to the doc’s steady hands, Reggie is already back to his old self, Payton explains.
“He’s good,” she says of Reggie. “Absolutely normal.”
As for Payton’s now-infamous science project, she was able to complete a second version of Mt. Haleakala. But she made one key alteration to her next attempt.
“I completely redid the project with glue the second time,” Payton says.
“And, for her hard work — and after Reggie’s life-threatening sweet tooth — we are happy to report that Payton received an ‘A.’”
Source: CBS News Denver
