The 16th Minute

George is one BIG dog

2012-02-07T18:47:00.001-06:00

*Meet George the Great Dane*****

*The first time we saw George, our beloved Great Dane, he was no*
*More than a tiny, cowering ball of fuzzy fur. As my wife Christie*
*Opened the door of the crate he’d travelled in, he teetered to a*
*Standing position and looked out at us, moving his head slowly from*
*Side to side, taking in the wonder of it all. Finally, as if weighing us up
*
*And deciding we were acceptable, he tentatively pushed his little*
*Nose forward and gave Christie her first lick.*****

*Puppy love: A young George with Dave's wife Christie. Even as a pup he had*

*Comically large paws .*

*He came into our lives in January 2006, just a few months after we*
*Had married and set up home in Arizona . We both had busy jobs,*
*Christie selling medical equipment while I was a property developer,*
*But she had always planned that, once she had a house of her own,*
*She would also have a dog.*

*She wanted a Great Dane as they make great family pets, so we*
*Tracked down a litter of 13, born 1,000 miles away in Oregon .*
*Their owner emailed us a photo showing a chaotic jumble of paws,*
*Snouts and tails. Twelve were entangled with one another, but our*
*Eyes were drawn to one pup standing apart from the rest. He was*
*Clearly the runt, endearing him to Christie immediately.*

*Though it didn’t really register, George’s paws were comically large*
*Even then. But all we saw was this cute puppy. We certainly never*
*Dreamed he would one day become the biggest dog in the world,*
*Standing nearly 4ft high at the shoulder, 7ft long and weighing*
*Nearly 18 stone. Right now, he just looked bewildered.*

*George made the long journey from Oregon to Phoenix by plane and*
*We picked him up from the freight area, tired but unshaken.. As soon*
*As George settled into our home, we discovered our plans to be fair*
*But firm parents were wishful thinking. All the things that make*
*Great Danes wonderful pets — their lack of aggression and their*
*Attachment to humans — make them more emotionally sensitive than*
*Other dogs. They need to be with their ‘pack’ at all times and at*
*Night the cute pup with intensely blue eyes turned into a*
*Caterwauling banshee whenever we tried to leave him alone in*
*The kitchen.*

*No matter how much we reminded ourselves that he had every*
*Home comfort (warm dog bed, warm blanket, warm kitchen,*
*Squeaky bone), each whimper created a picture in our heads of a*
*Tragic, abandoned pup, desperate for his mother. Eventually, we*
*Gave in and shunted George’s dog bed into our bedroom.*

*Magnificent: George measures more than 7 ft from nose to tail and weighs*
*18 stone and is the world's biggest dog, but he's terrified of Chihuahuas
...*

*In the coming months, Christie really threw herself into being a*
*Mum to George. As well as a photo album, he had a growth chart —*
*We were soon reading it in awe. At five months he still acted like a*
*Puppy, chasing his tail and playing games of fetch and tug-of-war*
*With his favourite bit of rope. But he was already the size of a*
*Fully-grown Labrador . He was putting on more than a pound a day*
*And he bounded around like Bambi, skittering on our wooden floors*
*And hurling himself at everything he fancied, including us humans.*
*His displays of affection could leave you pinned temporarily against a
wall or a piece of furniture.*

*His size did not go unnoticed in the outside world. Our local park*
*Had a section for puppies but we were bullied out of it by other*
*Owners, who were scared George would hurt their pups — but the*
*Opposite was true.*

*The smaller dogs ran around and under him, and he’d be constantly
sidestepping them, obviously anxious and jittery. Slowly we realized*
*That our enormous puppy was a big softie. Besides his terror of*
*Being left alone, he had a fear of water. He’d growl anxiously at the side
of our swimming pool, alarmed that his ‘pack’ members would so willingly
place themselves in danger of drowning.*

*If the pool was his most-hated place, his favourite was our bedroom.
Eventually he outgrew the single mattress we placed there for him*
*and preferred instead the comfort of our king-sized bed —*
*sprawling between us like some over-indulged prince while we*
*spent half the night clinging onto the edges.*

*Paws for thought: George's giant feet dwarf Dave's hand*

*In the summer of 2006, we solved this problem by buying him his*
*own queen-sized mattress, which he still sleeps on today at the*
*bottom of our bed. But soon we encountered another challenge as*
*George reached doggie puberty. Once he had grabbed life by the*
*lapels, now he was grabbing onto legs — table legs, chair legs, human*
*legs, he wasn’t picky — and doing what all male dogs do with the*
*vigour of a canine giant.*

*He calmed down in the furniture department after we had him*
*neutered, but then he took up a new hobby, eating as if it were*
*an Olympic sport. A sausage on the barbecue was like a siren to a*
*passing sailor. You couldn’t turn your back for a minute. And he was*
*so tall that he actually had to bend down to pinch food off kitchen*
*counters.*

*He could reach the high shelves as well, so we had to hide everything*
*away in cupboards. Soon, he was getting through around 100lb of*
*dry dog food every month.*

*As he approached his first birthday in November 2006, weighing*
*about 14 stone, it was getting physically impossible to make him go*
*anywhere he didn’t want to — including the vet’s surgery. He had*
*not forgotten the time he went there in possession of his manhood —*
*and came out less than whole. As soon as he recognized the entrance,*
*he refused to move. So I had to take him around to the less familiar*
*back door instead.*

*For all these troubles, George gave us plenty in return, not least*
*the following year when Christie lost the baby she was carrying.*
*Evidently tuned in to her grief, George was a constant presence at*
*her side. When she sat, he sat too. When she stood, he stood and*
*padded alongside her to wherever she was going.*

*His personality grew more delightful the bigger he got. A male*
*Great Dane typically weighs from nine to 11 stone, but by Christmas*
*2007 George weighed 15 stone — bigger than most men. At this*
*point, he loved being chauffeured around in my golf cart and would*
*sit in it, his haunches on the seat and front legs on the floor.*
*By Christmas 2008, our canine colossus weighed 18 stone. A friend*
*suggested he might be a contender for the Guinness Book of*
*Records, but we had other things to think about: Christie had*
*discovered that she was pregnant again.*

*With size comes problems: George the giant barely fits in the back*
*of his owner's SUV*

*The trouble was, when our daughter Ann abel arrived that September*
*George made it clear he wanted nothing to do with this interloper.*
*He was used to spending nights in delightful oblivion at the foot of*
*our bed. Ann abel’s high-decibel presence simply wasn’t on.*
*When she cried, he’d wake, harrumph and then turn over in annoyance.*
*Once it was clear the racket was going to continue, he’d exhale*
*heavily again, till one of us finished that mysterious feeding thing*
*we did with the noisy intruder.*

*But while he might not have cared much for Ann abel, George loved*
*her dolls, especially a stuffed green one that played a nursery*
*rhyme when squeezed. Whenever he could, he placed it between*
*his paws and pressed it so he could hear the tune. It was like a*
*security blanket. It was a period of such big adjustment for him that*
*if it made him happy, then it was fine by us and our patience was*
*rewarded.*

*Slowly, George understood that Ann abel was our pack’s youngest*
*member and in need of his affection and protection. And on*
*Christmas morning, he ended his three-month sulk, acknowledging*
*her presence with a lick of her hand. It was the best present we*
*could have had — although the beginning of 2010 brought more good*
*news.*

*A doggone miracle: George the Great Dane with the Nasser's daughter*
*Annabel at home in Arizona*

*Over the previous weeks, while Ann abel slept, Christie had applied*
*to the Guinness World Records people on George’s behalf. That*
*February, one of their adjudicators came to watch George being*
*measured in the presence of a vet. He was officially declared not*
*just the world’s tallest living dog (43 inches from paw to shoulder)*
*but the tallest dog ever.*

*The following week we flew to Chicago to appear on the Oprah*
*Winfrey Show and were put up in one of the city’s most luxurious*
*hotels. We had a huge sitting room, dining area and even a bar —*
*but there was just one problem. There was nowhere for George to*
*sleep.*

*As we enjoyed a gourmet meal and a bottle of red wine that night,*
*he struggled to settle on two roll-out divans provided for him.*
*Infuriatingly, they wouldn’t stay together. So he had his head on*
*one and back end on the other, but his stomach was sagging onto*
*the carpet.*

*‘You know what we need to do,’ I joked. ‘Give George our bed to sleep on
and have the divans
in this room ourselves.’*

*Christie looked at me with a telltale gleam in her eye and I knew*
*immediately my joke had been a fatal error. An hour later, our boy*
*was sprawled in splendour in our huge, fluffy king-size bed.*

*‘Well,’ whispered Christie, ‘George is the star here, after all.’ She*
*was right, of course, and since his appearance on TV, Giant George*
*has built a following around the world, with his own fan club, website*
*and 70,000 fans on Facebook.*

*None of this, of course, means anything to George. He still spends*
*his days doing what he has always liked best: eating, playing and*
*sleeping. Our cherished pet may have become a global celebrity —*
*but really, he’s just one of the family.*

*Man's biggest friend: Devoted owner Dave Nasser with George.*

*George weighed 18 stones which is 252 pounds!!!*****

*Wow! pass it on!*****

****

** **

The 16th Minute

George is one BIG dog

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