Diamonds may be forever—but they are definitely not for dinner. Yet try telling that to Honey Bun, the 19-month-old Pomeranian who downed $10,000 worth of diamonds in mid-August.

Chuck Roberts, co-owner of both John Ross Jewelers in Albany, Ga., and Honey Bun, tells JCK it all started when he absentmindedly left a bag of 1 ct. stones on his desk. “We usually keep Honey Bun’s treats there,” he says. “So he jumped up, and when he couldn’t find his treats, ate the diamonds.”

Once Roberts discovered what happened, he raced the pint-size pooch to the vet. “The doctor said the diamonds will just come out the other end,” he says. “I was relieved. I have millions in inventory. But my little puppy is worth more to me than that.”

A store employee eventually, um, retrieved the stones—with the help of some rubber gloves—and they were sent back to the supplier, which Roberts now regrets: “In hindsight, I should have kept them and mounted them on the wall. They would have been a conversation piece forever.”

He thought the episode was over—until the vet’s office tipped off the local news. That story led to hundreds all over the world. Soon, Roberts was being interviewed by the BBC, and the gem-gobbling dog was posing for pics for the National Enquirer. “I have a friend who’s a brick distributor,” Roberts says. “He says it’s the best publicity he’s ever seen. He’s trying to get his poodle to eat one of his bricks.”