Stevens Point, Wisconsin, resident Lois Matykowski was devastated when, five years ago, she lost her wedding ring.
“My husband and I had been married for 20 years at that time,” she tells ABC News. “We had just upgraded the ring, and it wasn’t insured. And it wasn’t just the value, but also the emotional ties.”
“How do you replace that?” she adds.
Matykowski looked everywhere, searching high and low for her ring. She checked the house, she checked the car, she checked the yard — but her wedding ring was nowhere to be found.
That’s when she had a thought about where her ring might be.
Matykowski’s dog, Rottweiler mix Tucker, has a very telling nickname.
“He’s known in the family to be the food burglar,” Matykowski explains.
Tucker has earned a reputation for mischief over the years, she says.
“You wouldn’t think he’s ten years old by the way he acts,” Matykowski tells WAOW of Tucker.
But after weeks of checking Tucker’s leavings for her beloved ring, Matykowski began to give up hope.
Little did she know that more than five years later, her ring would turn up exactly where she suspected it might surface.
Two weeks ago, Matykowski and her granddaughter were sitting outside in the yard, enjoying summer popsicles. Tucker, always the mischievous pooch, sneaked a treat for himself — popsicle stick and all.
“After I turn around and look at my granddaughter and the popsicle is gone and there’s Tucker smacking his jaws,” says Matykowski.
It may have been tasty at first, but that popsicle didn’t sit easily in Tucker’s tummy. Two days later, Tucker started vomiting. As Matykowski cleaned up after poor Tucker, she made a shocking discovery.
“I look in the paper towel and here is my wedding ring,” Matykowski remembers. “I kid you not. My wedding ring was in Tucker’s puke.”
“I screamed. I kid you not,” she says.
For all those long years, Matykowski’s missing wedding ring was very close indeed, sitting at the bottom of her dog’s stomach. Tucker’s veterinarian believes the popsicle stick must have dislodged the ring from its resting place.
“I’m just elated. He threw up on the carpeting and I don’t even care,” Matykowski says.
“My friends have been telling me: ‘I want a dog that throws up diamonds,’” she jokes. “Who wouldn’t, right?”
But after all those years in the bottom of Tucker’s tummy, was the ring even salvageable? Matykowski says she gently brushed the ring with a soft-bristled toothbrush to clean and buff the ring and it looks as good as new.
As for Tucker, the Rottie mix is feeling much better now. Matykowski says she hopes her dog will stick to eating only things that are meant to be eaten.
