It's the age old excuse 'my dog ate my homework' - but what happens when your dog actually eats your passport, days before your flight?
One naughty pup has taken the expression to an extreme and shredded his owner's passport "in a million pieces" - ahead of her best friend's wedding abroad.
Sophia Kourtney, 24, left her one-year-old pooch Prince alone for two hours and returned home to find her passport ruined.
She is now anxiously waiting to hear back from the passport office, to see if her new one will arrive in time to allow her to travel to pal Sinead McCormack's wedding.
Otherwise, Sophia faces not only forking out over £200 for the fast-tracked passport, but also losing out on the long awaited holiday and £600 cost.
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Sophia, from Salford, Greater Manchester, said: "I had my passport out to check in online and left it with my laptop on my desk to go out for my eyelash appointment.
"I leave him the run of the conservatory where my desk is and when I got home I saw a bit of paper by the door.
"I saw the label sticking out from the rug and thought he'd probably just chewed that but as I walked in to investigate further I saw my passport and I was fuming.
"He has jumped on the table and pulled my laptop bag off the table and my passport was just slid inside it.
"He's got loads and loads of toys to play with but he's chewed every single page out of it.
"He's a serial chewer, this is not his first rodeo - he's chewed the heels off two pairs of my Louboutins."
The aesthetics practitioner is due to fly out to Larnaca in Cyprus for the wedding on May 11, in just 14 days.
But she fears even if she beats the odds by getting her new passport in time, she will be left without a dog sitter as family members now refuse to look after the naughty pooch.
Sophia explained: "It's my best friend's wedding in Larnaca and obviously because of Covid it's all been put off so it's been two or three I've been waiting for this.
"It's going to be my first holiday in two years post-lockdown. I've been so looking forward to it, we've got a villa between eight of us and the flights were booked ages ago.
"I've had my dress for the wedding over a year waiting to go. The wedding has been planned longer than I've had him [Prince] and he's just come along and f*cked it all up.
"Everyone was like 'you know he's a little terror you shouldn't have left it out on the table' but you don't think he's going to pick up your passport and chew through it.
"My family were going to take it in turns to look after him but they're all saying 'he's not coming to my house, he can't be trusted' so I don't think anyone will look after this little terror for me now anyway."
With very little time until her flight and the average wait time for a new passport being ten weeks, the dog owner desperately searched for an appointment to fast track her application.
But to her horror, the closest slot was on May 16 - the day everyone will be returning home from the holiday and wedding celebrations.
After calling the passport office and explaining her predicament, Sophia says she was advised to send her destroyed passport to them and then ring up once they have received it to upgrade her application.
She says this means she will have to fork out the usual £80 charge for a new passport as well as an additional £145 to speed up the process and receive her new passport within seven days.
Sophia said: "I rang the airline and they said if you could just have the actual page with your photo and code that would be alright but that was just in a million and one pieces.
"I told my friend and everyone in the group chat straight away and they've all been ringing me telling me when they see an appointment come up but by the time I get on the website it's gone already.
"I tried the London, Belfast and Liverpool offices and there's literally nothing.
"I sent my passport off on Friday and I keep checking the online tracker but it hasn't updated yet. It's going to cost me over £200 to sort. I'm just so stressed."
The aesthetics practitioner says she believes Prince's chewing habit is a result of separation anxiety from being a lockdown puppy - as she was constantly with him for the early months of his life.
His nervous chewing has destroyed not only his owner's passport but also her designer shoes and various items and furniture in her family's homes as well.
Sophia said: "I think he suffers with separation anxiety because he has a tendency to chew all the time.
"When I got him in lockdown I wasn't working so I was constantly with him but now I'm starting to go out more and work and he just can't deal with it, I have to take him everywhere.
"When I've been at my mums a couple of times he's chewed her railings and blinds. He needs his teeth taken out or something.
"I bought him a cage so he can't chew anything but he just howls and howls constantly so in my old apartment I got noise complaints about the dog.
"When I moved out I lost all my deposit because he'd chewed through every single corner of the skirting boards. He's just a nightmare."
Sophia says the remains of her old passport are supposed to have already arrived at the passport office but her tracking is yet to update to confirm.
She fears she won't get a new passport in time for her flight as the passport office workers have explained they can't start processing it until they receive her old one.
With her holiday preparations already fully underway she risks losing the £600 cost of the trip as well as hundreds spent on new outfits and beauty treatments, including eyelashes and a hair appointment.
Sophia said: "I don't really know if they're going to be able to get it to me in time.
"I've been explaining to the passport people that it's my friend's wedding and I need to be there but they can't do anything until they receive my old passport.
"I keep getting waves of anxiety that it's not going to come back in time and I won't be able to go, everyone's just praying for me.
"I'm going to have severe fomo if I'm not there. I just hope today or tomorrow they update the tracker."
Do you have a dog story to tell? Contact nia.dalton@reachplc.com.
