A guide dog ate more than £250 of banknotes that were collected for charity

Lewis, aged five, who lives with Claire and Gordon Webb at the money after it was left out overnight by his owners.

The shreds, and the rest of the notes that were fully digested, have now been bagged up and the couple hope they can be substituted.

Mr Webb is a member of the Frinton Rotary Club in Essex was put in charge of organising the Christmas fundraising.

He said: "We had been collecting during the carol concert and had gone out on a sleigh with Father Christmas on board and I had been counting the money and sorting it for banking.

"I came down the other morning and by the coffee table there were shreds of paper. I realised what they were and I thought 'no - he's eaten all the notes'."

Mr Webb said he had since been in touch with the Bank of England about replacing the notes, and he was relieved to be told that it happened "all the time".

He added: "I just have to send it all off. Lewis will eat anything. When they're working, they behave impeccably, but as soon as they're off duty they're dogs again.

"At the time I was very cross with him - I did a bit of a 'Gordon RamsayGordon Ramsay' and he was a bit sheepish for a while, but then he got round me."

The cash is collected by the group every Christmas and is partly used to organise charity events during the following year while some of the money is donated to local groups.

Mr Webb said there had been an emergency whip-round at the Rotary Club while he had promised to underwrite any shortfall if the notes could not all be replaced.

Mrs Webb had a stroke about five years ago and was left blind. The couple have an 11-year-old daughter Louise and Mrs Webb was paired with Lewis when he was just 21 months old.