Giant George (23 page)

“First class?” Christie spluttered. “But I thought you were joking when you said that! They’re really going to fly us all to Chicago first class?”

I nodded. “Honey, I am absolutely not kidding you.” I gestured to my cell and the call I’d just disconnected. “Honestly, that’s what she just said.”

“All
of us? Really?”

I nodded again. “
All
of us. One seat for you, one for me, two for Georgie—”

“Two for
Georgie
?”

I grinned. “Yup, they think George will need two seats, apparently.”

She glanced at him now, and he cocked his head sideways, as if to say, “You got a problem with that, Mom?”

“Well,” she said finally. “I am pretty impressed. I was thinking they’d expect him to sit on the floor.
Wow. Who’d have imagined this?” She shook her head. “First class to Chicago.
Wow. In fact, first class to anywhere! How exciting is that, Dave? I mean, wow!”

It had been a case of “wow” pretty much since we’d said goodbye to Jamie that morning, and George and I had headed home from Dr. Boulay’s office followed by the whole
Oprah
film crew.

It wasn’t simply a question of us appearing on the show,
apparently; they also had to film some additional footage, called a B-roll, which would introduce us—and show George in his normal home environment—as the forerunner to our segment on the show.

As afternoons went, ours was fast becoming surreal. Sure, we’d done filming before—the stuff we’d put on YouTube, and the original measuring—but this was serious; these were professionals at work, and
they took their job very, very seriously.

Luckily, I was never a shy kind of guy, but even I was a little fazed at being professionally “directed,” as they had me and George open our front door, had me inviting the viewers in, had us parading around the house, showing off his food bowls and his bed. But if I was a little self-conscious about it, George himself was entirely unfazed. Hell, he was
the tallest dog in the world now,
officially
. Because this was to be shown before we went on camera in Oprah’s studio to have the official Guinness announcement made, I had to make a small adjustment to the script and just say that I
thought
he was.

That done, while Christie got on the phone to her boss to arrange a couple of days’ leave, we all headed down to the dog
park. They wanted to film
George running around with his friends, and also thought it would be cool if I could bring down my enormous, home-improvised pooper-scooper. “You need big tools for big jobs!” I quipped to camera.

It was now around four o’clock in the afternoon—several hours since either Christie or I had had a chance to grab ourselves a meal but, at the same time, less than six since the measuring had taken
place—and already the colossal
Oprah Winfrey Show
machine was in full flow. It was like we’d been swept up by some huge TV juggernaut—all-powerful, and completely unstoppable.

But I wasn’t worried. From the beginning, it felt that every single thing would be taken care of, right down to the
Oprah
show details by the amazing Shantel, who’d already put all sorts of things in motion. She’d even
organized an appointment for George to see Doc Wallace, so he could get a certificate to confirm he was fit to fly. I’d headed off to the vet with him right after the crew left.

And her next mission—the reason she had called me now—was to get George and us from Tucson to Chicago by airplane, preferably tomorrow.

It didn’t seem to matter to the Oprah team just how hard that might be to achieve
in practice, and, as Shantel had explained to me on the phone, it had been proving pretty hard. Since we’d last spoken about it—right after the measuring took place—it had been quite a job back in Chicago, apparently, to solve the problem of how best they could get George to the show.

They’d first suggested transporting him via a pet charter. A pet charter is a flight that takes animals only,
in crates, and has no seats on board for any passengers. This was complex and far from ideal. First, because we’d have to dovetail it with another flight for me and Christie, and second, because we weren’t so sure George would enjoy being crated up and separated from us for that length of time. As it turned out, a pet charter wouldn’t work anyway. It was only good for pets up to a hundred and fifty
pounds—a whole ninety-five pounds less than George was.

Next up, then, was the plan to hire a private jet for him. But costing close to a staggering $30,000, this was dismissed as being a little
too
much, even for
The Oprah Winfrey Show
to fork out. Since then they’d contacted several of the big airlines, without success. This latest call from Shantel had brought good news, however. Apparently,
American Airlines was up for trying to do it—and first class—but only if a long list of boxes were ticked, including George wearing a muzzle so he wouldn’t scare the other passengers. They were also worried about how flying might affect him. Would he vomit? Would his ears hurt? Would he be scared and get aggressive? Would he lose control and go to the bathroom on the plane?

These were all real
concerns, and they had every right to voice them. It was a big deal taking
any
animal into the air in a plane, let alone when that animal’s the size of a large lion, and in the cabin with the passengers. I told Shantel to reassure them that he really was a gentle giant, that he had a bladder capacity that could probably bust a few world records of its own, and that I didn’t doubt for a second
that he’d deal with air
travel the same way he dealt with everything else—without the least bit of fuss.

She called the airline back, but they weren’t satisfied. They weren’t happy about doing it unless they felt reassured, and they felt they would be only if they could meet George beforehand, which was why Shantel had just called me back. Could I maybe get myself and George down to the Tucson
airport to meet with someone from AA? Give the thing a bit of a tryout—like, now?

“So George and I have to head down to the airport,” I told Christie, “to give Project Oprah a dry run.”

“What,
now
?” she said, glancing at the kitchen clock in shock.

“Yup,” I confirmed. “Like,
now
.”

As George and I headed off in my truck to the airport, I took some time to take it all in. We were now the owners
of the tallest dog in the world, ever. The tallest dog in the
whole world
. It was mind-blowing. It was incredible to think that all the hard work had paid off, that our pet was now famous—potentially
world
famous.

“Hey, Georgie,” I said. “How does it feel, now that it’s official? Do you feel different? Do you feel special? Do you feel ready for your fifteen minutes of fame?”

I shook my head.
Fame. What a strange concept for a dog, and one that obviously, bar a whole load of petting and attention, meant nothing to George whatsoever. And he was going
to be a “celebrity passenger,” courtesy of Oprah Winfrey and American Airlines—well, more correctly, a celebrity passenger if it all worked out okay. Would he really be as cool as I’d reassured everybody he would be? Would he do okay at
thirty-nine thousand feet? Would he be okay as a guest on a TV show?

I glanced across at him as we drove, and he glanced right on back. Yup, he seemed to say, he’d be just
fine
.

Shantel had arranged for us to meet a guy at the airport—he was the local head manager for American Airlines, based in Tucson, and it was he who had to decide whether everything was going to work. It took around thirty
minutes for us to get there, and by the time we arrived it was dark. The drizzly clouds of earlier had disappeared too, and the sky was, as ever, full of stars.

I love airports at night, the light and the sprawl of them, the fact that everyone’s heading somewhere, that feeling of expectation and excitement they always seem to have. And this was something different in itself. As it was the airline
manager’s day off, he’d come from home specially to do this. He’d brought his wife along, too, as she wanted to meet George, so, once we’d found them, we spent some time out on the forecourt taking pictures.

We left her then and went into the bowels of the airport, which gave me a real feeling of déjà vu. We were heading to a different area in a different airport, but it felt just like when we’d
come to pick up George as a puppy all that time ago at the airport in Phoenix, as we went through a whole bunch of corridors and elevators that you’d never know existed, and then
suddenly—
voilà!
—we were out on the back side, and there was this great big AA airplane just sitting there.

“So, how is he with traveling generally?” the guy, who was named Pete, asked me, as we crossed the tarmac toward
it.

“Oh, just fine,” I answered. “Provided he has room. I mean, he hasn’t flown anywhere since he was a puppy, of course—”

He nodded. “Shantel mentioned that. And I’m with you, there. It’d be one hell of a thing for him to travel in the hold. Is there even a crate anywhere that would hold him?” He laughed then, and shook his head. “Stupid question. I’m guessing that’s a ‘no’!”

I nodded. “But
on road trips, he’s always been great. He’s real placid, as you can see, and he’s a great sleeper. Plus he has this truly amazing bladder. It’s incredible, really. He can go all day and night if he needs to.”

“All day
and
night? That’s incredible. So no worries on a four-hour flight, then.”

“None at all.”

But he didn’t look as though he was convinced.

It was really weird, getting on a big
empty plane, just Pete, me and George—not that George was bothered. As perhaps befitted a dog whose diet included several pounds of Paul Newman’s finest dog food every week, he trotted right on up the steps, every inch the matinee idol, and even turned left, toward the first-class area, when he got to the top. It was as though he
knew
which part of the cabin was the part he should be in.

“Okay,”
said Pete, as I followed him down the fuselage,
taking in the space and the feeling of opulence. There were two seats on each side of the central aisle, with loads of leg space between them. And they were big seats too—way bigger than the ones we were used to in coach, with large armrests and headrests, all made of fine leather.

“So,” he said. “Here’s the first-class cabin. We were thinking that
if we sat George in here…” He gestured. “You and your wife can sit across the aisle from him.” He pointed out a row. “You want to try him in here?”

“Sure,” I said. I tried every which way I could think of to fit him in. I tried him rear first, backing him into the row of seats, and then I tried him forward so his head faced the window. I tried him on the seats (Pete didn’t seem to mind this at
all), then I tried him in front of the seats, sitting on the floor. But there was simply no way we could do it. However George settled himself—and he seemed to be loving this new game of ours—there just wasn’t room for him to fit. He was too big. The setup at the front simply wasn’t wide enough for him. If he lay down—which is what he’d be doing, pretty much—his head not only stuck out into the
aisle, it stuck out so far that his paws were touching the seat across the aisle. And they couldn’t have that for safety reasons, of course, not to mention it would impede the trolley that brought all the goodies.

“Okay,” Pete said finally, having watched all these attempts with a wry expression on his face. “I don’t think this is going to work, is it?” He shook his head. “You’re not going to
want to hear it, I know, but I think it might have to be economy after all.”

So we filed back to economy, and it seemed to me he was
right. There was plenty more width to play with here. What George probably needed was the row at the bulkhead—the row immediately behind the partition and galley, where there was plenty of floor space in front of the seats too. Here he could stretch out properly.
Back here it was set up with three seats on one side and two on the other, and, as we’d thought, the three side was perfect for him. Christie and I could have the bank of two opposite. We had George try it out, and, presto, it worked fine.

Or at least, I thought it did. I could see that Pete wasn’t so sure. It was a feeling I’d had pretty much since we’d started this whole process. Though he
was pleasant and friendly, the whole tone of this operation had felt serious from the start. Much as I was doing my best to reassure him, I knew that if he didn’t feel it would work to take George on this aircraft, then there was no way he was going to okay it.

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “This all still seems a bit tight to me. I’m not sure they’re going to go for this.”

The
“they” in this case were the higher powers at AA, who were in charge of safety, and Pete explained that he’d need to talk to them before they could give things the all clear. I got the impression that there was quite a lot riding on this, that this decision was quite a big responsibility for him. He’d already taken a couple of photos of George in first class, and now he took a couple more of him sitting
in the bulkhead. “You know,” I said, as he did so, wanting to reassure him some more, “you can trust me on this. George really is
the
most chilled dog on the planet. And he’s trained, so he’s highly obedient too.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he told me, as we went back down the steps. “And I will do my best on this, I promise. But I really don’t know. I can’t get you an answer right now. We’ll be back
to you—well, Shantel will, I guess—just as soon as we can.”

We made uncomfortable small talk as he escorted us out, my mind mainly elsewhere as it was beginning to sink in that the chances were high this wouldn’t happen. We finally reached the public area of the airport again. There was nothing I could do now except keep my fingers crossed, and with the flight time tomorrow morning now less than
twelve hours away, I just had to hope for the best. I thanked Pete, and made one last stab at reassuring him, then George and I headed back toward town.

As I drove, the whole exercise was beginning to feel crazy, and I wondered if the chances of the trip happening were disappearing fast. Here George and I were running around town late on a Monday evening, and the whole thing could be for nothing.
But we had to keep positive that it would happen; fingers crossed, Pete would come through for us with the airline. While he did what he had to do, we had a job of our own. We had to get to a pet store and buy a muzzle for George before the stores closed for the night. I hadn’t realized how late it was, so we had only a few minutes to get to the nearest pet store, but we had to make it, because
no muzzle meant
definitely
no flight.