Dog Dines on a Diamond Ring, Gets Just Deserts at Vet

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.

The dog was rushed to a nearby veterinarian, where the ring eventually was recovered.

“Duque”--part chow, part poodle--had been gleefully nipping Friday at the steam from a ring-cleaning machine being used by his owner, jeweler Art Peltz. As Peltz held the ring with tongs and waved it over the stream of steam, the dog grabbed and swallowed the ring.

“We always thought it was so cute the way the dog reacted to the steam,” ring owner Carolyn Solomon said. “I didn’t think it was so funny when I realized the ring was gone.”

Peltz, 69, the owner of Creative Jewelers, said Duque’s antics are so unusual that people come into the store to watch the animal jump around when the steam machine is turned on. He nips at the steam as if it were water from a garden hose. Because of the obsession, Peltz said, Duque was once even on the television show “Prime Time Pets.”

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when the ring disappeared,” Peltz said.

Carolyn Solomon and her husband, Fred, rushed Duque to nearby Laguna Beach Animal Hospital, where Dr. James Levin took X-rays that spotted the ring in the dog’s stomach. Then Levin gave the animal medicine that caused it to vomit.

“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.

Some repairs have to be made on the ring before it will be returned to Solomon.

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

The dog, according to Peltz, was once homeless, left on the doorstep of the little shop on Coast Highway three years ago. But for a while Friday, Duque was one of the most valuable dogs around.