A Gleam in Dog’s Eye, a Ring in His Stomach

A woman who had stopped by a jewelry store to have her anniversary ring cleaned said she was dumbstruck when a 60-pound guard dog playfully jumped up and swallowed the $15,000 diamond.

Witnesses said the dog was rushed to a nearby veterinarian where the ring was recovered--without injury to either the diamond or the dog, jeweler Art Peltz said Saturday.

The mishap occured Friday when Peltz, owner of Creative Jewelers on Coast Highway, began steam-cleaning the ring while customer Carolyn Solomon looked on.

As Peltz held the ring with tongs and waived it over the stream of hot air, his 3-year-old dog, Duque--part chow and part poodle--began nipping at the steam hose.

Peltz said Duque’s antics are so legendary that people come into his store just to watch the animal jump around the steam machine. The animal’s behavior even earned Duque an appearance on the television comedy show “Prime Time Pets.”

“We always thought it was so cute the way the dog reacted to the steam,” Solomon said.

But when Duque jumped up and inadvertently grabbed and swallowed her diamond, Solomon added: “I didn’t think it was so funny when I realized the ring was gone.”

Said Peltz: “I couldn’t believe my eyes when the ring disappeared. I was trying to alternate between the dog biting at the steam and sticking the ring into the steam. I guess I was a little slow. The dog ate the ring.”

Peltz had to watch the store, so Solomon and her husband, Fred, loaded Duque into their car and drove to nearby Laguna Beach Animal Hospital. “I wasn’t going to let that dog out of my sight,” Solomon said.

At the hospital, Dr. James Levin quickly took X-rays that located the ring in the dog’s stomach. Levin gave the animal an emetic medicine that caused it to cough up the ring.

“The ring came up the first time,” Levin said, adding that it was by far the most valuable thing he had ever extracted from the digestive tract of a pet. “It has to rate among the top 10 most unusual things I have done since becoming a veterinarian.”

Some minor repairs will be made on the ring’s gold band before it can be returned, Solomon said.

“Art always said the dog was going to swallow a ring some day,” Solomon said. “At first I thought it was a joke, then I knew the dog had just eaten my ring. All I could think was, ‘That dog does diamonds.’ ”

After spending the night at the vet’s, Duque was back in the jewelry store Saturday, again jumping around every time the steam machine was turned on.

Peltz said the dog has guarded his shop ever since being abandoned on his doorstep as a pup. Although Duque sometimes looks mean, Peltz said he has a gentle disposition. “As a guard dog,” the jeweler said, “he would probably lick you to death.”