Giant George (19 page)

Will, of course, was now the superstar of the class, and as for George, well, George was a hero. All animals
tend to have a positive effect on kids, but the way George seemed to be able to light up a room—particularly a room full of children—really blew us away. It also made us think. We realized at that point that, whatever else happened, our gentle giant seemed to have found his calling.

But the reality of just what big national news George had
become only really hit home a few days after that small
local visit, when he was a story on the number one morning TV show in America. Watching it, we could only shake our heads in complete wonderment. We seemed to have made a PR home run without even really trying! It was simply inexplicable. Wow.

But if George was fast becoming something of a minor celebrity, it was nothing compared to what he was about to become.

“You will not believe this,” said
Dana, a couple of days later. “I’ve just taken a call from the
Rachael Ray
show!”

Rachael Ray
, which was made right across the continent, in New York, was quickly becoming one of the most popular national daytime talk shows in America. It was made by the Oprah Winfrey organization and had only started in 2006 but was already a big-hitter in terms of ratings. Rachael Ray herself had been a successful
chef and cookbook writer; now she was one of the top TV talk show hosts too. Needless to say, then, that being asked to appear on the show was
big
. And they apparently wanted to get George on the show
now
, even though he hadn’t yet won the Guinness title.

“But I told them I’d have to get back to them,” Dana added. “Because there’s the obvious problem of how we’d get him to New York.”

This was
something we’d already discussed as a group. George, we were firm, was flying nowhere. Dogs were not allowed in the cabins of planes, so flying meant he’d have to travel in a hold, and it was therefore simply not an option. Team
George was emphatically
not
about exploiting our beloved pet in any way. This was fun for all of us, sure, but one thing was clear: it had to be comfortable for Georgie
too. No exceptions.

And
Rachael Ray
hadn’t been the only invitation; it was the icing on the cake of a number of invitations, several of which took us completely by surprise. Our phones had been ringing with requests for George that came from the East Coast of the United States to Europe to Japan and beyond. We simply couldn’t believe how far the story had traveled, how widely it had reached
across the world. We couldn’t believe some of the weird questions that were being asked about him either, like “How big are his poops?,” “Can we get some of his sperm?,” “Could our kid ride him?,” “How fast can he eat ten pounds of sausages?”—the answer to the latter, of course, being “
Very
fast.” Our happy hours suddenly got even happier than usual, as we sifted through the legions of bizarre
requests and queries. We were even approached by Mitsubishi Motors: Could George perhaps fly out for the New York Car Show?

But George didn’t need to become some nomadic jet-setting canine; he could reach out to people in the virtual world. We were happy enough to watch and marvel at his growing fanbase, and the three of us, me, Dana and Paul, would text and call daily—several times a day—to
update each other on progress.

And one item of progress toward the end of October 2009, was another brief brush with major stardom. We got a call from the people at
The Oprah Winfrey Show
—perhaps the most famous talk show in the entire world. They understood
that George was currently in the application process for the Guinness title of tallest dog. And if so, and if he won, could we perhaps get
back in touch? Because, if he did, then Oprah would really like to have him on to take part in a segment they did regularly called “That’s Incredible!”

“Except it’s not going to happen,” I said to Paul and Dana, when they told me.

“What, the
record
?” gasped Dana. “Of
course
he’ll get the record!”

I grinned and shook my head. “Don’t be silly. Not the record—George is
so
going to get that. But
a road trip to Chicago is just way, way too far. Still,” I added, “nice to have been asked.”

A Guinness World Record doesn’t come easily. We kind of knew this, of course, because we’d already read a lot about it, and George and I had begun to put work into it.

I’d figured, early on, that the key thing that had to happen was for George to stand up to his full height. George by now had
a quite astonishing vocabulary; we reckoned he probably understood around forty words. But smart as he was—and he was definitely pretty smart—it would be some trick to be able to command him to “stand up straight!” and have him do exactly what we wanted.

No, what he needed was some good old-fashioned training, like Pavlov had done with
his
dogs. And George being George, I knew the best way to
do this would be to introduce some food into the equation. I gave it some thought, and eventually came up with a plan that I thought might just work.

I began with the tailgate at the back of my truck, which was high, but not quite high enough. So I got some planks of wood—I needed four to get the level just right—and set them
up on top of the tailgate. Now I had a platform that was almost, but
not quite, out of reach, on which I could place treats for George to eat, as long as he stretched up as high as he could.

Once I’d settled on the plan, it was a case of George learning what it was that he had to do, and I began taking him into the garage several times a day to embark on some serious training. Naturally, he loved this new game of ours. It even got so that whenever I headed toward
the garage, he’d begin to get really excited. Pavlov, I thought, would be very impressed.

I used all sorts of treats: doggie choc drops, bits of ham, lumps of sausage, but my trump card was George’s favorite, grilled chicken. That’s what I’d use on the day of the official measurement.

It was all great fun—for me as much as Georgie—but at the same time, the reality of our enthusiastic record-breaking
campaign was one hell of a lot of work for two beginner parents with a brand-new baby girl to look after. Annabel was still only a few weeks old at this stage—and the realization of how much our lives had begun to change was only just starting to kick in. We were so new to the business of being parents to our daughter and that was a big enough job in itself.

Or, more accurately, it was a bigger
job for Christie. I was somewhat swept up in the diversionary business of getting George’s record application rolling in the wake of the great storm of publicity. It seemed remarkable that so much had already happened, yet we still hadn’t put down our marker.

But, come late October, thanks to the kindness of friends and colleagues, we were finally ready to roll. To get George’s
application verified,
we had a whole list of conditions. We had to have the measurement done to exact specifications, overseen by Doc Wallace—our “qualified veterinarian”—and have it witnessed, in addition to that vital videotaping, by three upstanding members of the community. In our case, these were a certified public accountant, a medical doctor and a city council member. We’d decided to make everything professional
by hiring a small local film crew for the morning to make the movie that would support our application. After that, it was a case of some form filling—we needed signed notarized statements from all the witnesses and a letter from Doc Wallace, on his clinic’s letterhead, confirming the accuracy of the measurement.

We all gathered in Doc Wallace’s back lot, as arranged, on October 22, 2009. George,
of course, rose to the occasion with great aplomb, standing tall and statesmanlike and doing exactly what was needed, as though he knew his job here was clear: he was the world’s tallest dog—he knew it, we knew it. We just had to provide the evidence.

And why wouldn’t he enjoy all the fun he was having, and all these unexpected gifts of grilled chicken? While his mom was busy attending to the
new, demanding creature who’d suddenly been recruited to our family, he could swan off with me—we were a bit like a pair of truants from high school, looking back—and once again be the center of attention. It was, I guessed, like the old, pre-baby times for him, but it was now a regular occurrence, so even better.

In fact, George was beginning to develop an appointments
schedule that was worthy
of a Hollywood movie star with a new blockbuster to promote. And dealing with all this—from discussing with Team Giant George what to put on his website to taking him to do all his appearances—took up great chunks of my time. This supposedly little project for our happy hour nights was fast beginning to spiral out of control. I had absolutely no complaints, because I was enjoying every minute,
but there was also no getting away from the fact that I was beginning to feel like George’s employee.

And as much as that didn’t bother me one bit, someone else was getting seriously pissed off. “You know what?” Christie said, when I got home that evening, full of all the events of the day we’d had, and excited about making the application to Guinness. “I’m just about done with Team Giant George
stuff today, if you don’t mind.”

I could see her eyes were on the bunch of things I had in my hand: the collection of paperwork, the clutch of Guinness submission forms, the newly minted video of the measuring at Doc Wallace’s. And one thing her expression was definitely
not
saying was, “Gee, honey, I’m so excited to see that! You want to run it all by me, or what?” No, her expression was actually
very easily interpreted. It said, “I am tired and I am
really
not interested in all this. I know you are, but, trust me, I am NOT.”

I put the papers down on the breakfast bar and grabbed myself a beer, and took note of the fact that she was busy greeting George with a whole lot more enthusiasm than I’d got.

“Long day, huh?” I ventured. I got flashed a quick look.

“Longer than it needed to be,
for sure,” she responded. “You
know, I’ve lost count of the number of phone calls I’ve had—at least three of them while Annabel was being fed.”

Christie was breast-feeding, so I could easily appreciate how much of a hassle this must have been for her. And when our baby wasn’t feeding, she spent a lot of time sleeping—or would have, if the phone didn’t keep ringing all day.

I took a mental step
back. Life for Christie was tough at the moment. As for any mom, caring for a seven-week-old baby was all-encompassing. If she wasn’t nursing Annabel, or changing her—she went through what seemed like hundreds of diapers—she was burping her, soothing her and pacing up and down. She’d walk the equivalent of miles to get her off to sleep. And once that was done, there was no rest for Christie. She
still had to deal with the house and the laundry, not to mention her other “kid,” Georgie himself. She explained all this with an air of resignation, along with the fact that she’d eventually decided the best thing would be to take the phone off the hook.

“And you know what?” she went on, rinsing out George’s water bowl. “I couldn’t help thinking…”

“Thinking what?” I prompted, since she’d paused
for a second. Though, looking at her body language, I was pretty sure I already knew the answer—and I was right.

“I was thinking,” she went on, “do we really
need
all this right now?”

Not quite the answer I’d expected, to be honest. No, that was “you’re an absolute heel, Dave.” But she was on the same track, even so.

She put the bowl on the upturned crate that it sat on by the
breakfast bar
(his food and drink needed to be up off the floor so George wouldn’t strain his neck when he ate and drank), then she straightened up. “Think about it, Dave. Do we really need all this in our lives at this moment? I mean, I know it’s all supposed to be just for fun—” She put the “fun” bit in visual quote marks, I noticed. “But is it? Is it
really
? You know, it seems like there isn’t a minute in
the day—
every
day—when there isn’t someone calling up wanting something to be organized: some interview, or appearance, or signed this and signed that. But, look—” She spread her palms now. “Does it even
matter
, all this? Do we really care if George is the world’s tallest dog? Come to that—think about it, Dave, think hard—does
he
?”

As if by some instinct designed specifically to make a point,
a little cry issued forth from our bedroom. Anxious to make myself immediately and demonstrably useful, I signaled Christie to let me go, and headed off to the bedroom, but by the time I got there, Annabel was back in sweet dreams land. I very gently replaced the covers she’d kicked off, then tiptoed out equally softly.

Back in the kitchen, George and Christie were side by side at the breakfast
bar, George with his snout resting companionably on the counter, while Christie idly thumbed through the paperwork, her free hand languidly stroking his flank. Even from behind her, I could tell she was tired. She had a weary demeanor about her, and it flashed through my mind (and not for the first time) just how isolating and tiring these few weeks must have been for her. Sure, she’d had her mom
come to stay
with us for the first four or five days after Annabel’s birth, but since then we’d been pretty much on our own.