George runs with the big dogs

The Baltimore Sun

NEW YORK-- --Champion mastiff George Bailee rests his massive head in a pool of jowls. His brow is furrowed. His eyes, in their deep pink pockets, stare straight ahead. He appears unimpressed by the yappy pomp of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, ignoring the schnauzer braced against the gale-force winds of his groomer's blow dryer, and the toy fox terrier whose thighs have recently been polished with a toothbrush.

Only when a piece of hot dog pokes through the bars of his cage does the Cockeysville mastiff stir.

"Good George," says Larry Wolfe to the 215-pound dog, who, after the snack, gazes at his master with an expression of supreme satisfaction. His tongue streams out of the side of his mouth. Tusks of drool hang from both corners.

"How beautiful!" a bystander gasps.

George, naturally, doesn't react, but Wolfe grins at the thrill of it all. In the days before Monday afternoon's competition, George was an ordinary dog romping in his backyard. Now, in a matter of minutes, he'll be competing in the velvet-roped show rings of Madison Square Garden against nearly two dozen of the finest mastiffs in the country.

Wolfe tries not to think about what happened at last year's Westminster, when George nearly knocked over his handler. The whole performance looked so unpolished, so unprofessional, that if Wolfe dwells on it he might start to wonder whether they even deserve to be here. After all, he's a packaging salesman, not some big-time breeder or dot-com millionaire with a private jet to zip dogs across the country. And George is just a family pet.

Even now, with another season of competition under his belt, George sometimes seems out of his element at the country's most prestigious show. Upon arriving at the Hotel Pennsylvania, where many of the dogs stay, George barely sniffed his mixing bowl of dinner and was too frazzled to relieve himself in the sawdust paddock that had been set up in the hotel basement, complete with goofy plastic fire hydrants.

So Wolfe drove him to Central Park instead. It seemed a little more like home.

Unlikely champion

George Bailee was not intended to be a champion. The long hours of research that Wolfe put into purchasing a dog had nothing to do with the angle of his hindquarters or the beauty of his top line and everything to do with his health. The Wolfe family's first pet mastiff, the sweet but chronically sick Gus, spiked a fever one day and died in the back seat on the way to the vet. Wolfe wanted to protect his wife and two sons from further heartbreak, so he set out to buy the most robust puppy he could find.

George was born in rural Illinois, and Wolfe flew halfway across the country to retrieve him. On that plane ride back four years ago, even the pilot stopped by to see the 25-pound whopper, whose head flopped out of the carrying case he had already outgrown. He settled in merrily at Wolfe Ridge, which is what Larry Wolfe calls his family's sprawling, mammoth-dog-equipped colonial, and proceeded to grow bigger, and bigger.

In a sense George, whose full name is Systo's George Bailee Wolfe, has always been special because of his size. He is huge even for a mastiff, playing fetch with four-by-fours and depositing stalactites of slobber on vaulted ceilings. On a snowy lawn he leaves footprints of almost prehistoric proportions. Still, no one ever guessed that there could be more glory in store for him than his post as the unofficial mascot of the Dulaney Valley High School cross country team, or that one day his sperm would be cryogenically frozen for safekeeping.

Certainly George seemed to lack a typical show dog's outgoing temperament -- he is intensely gentle, almost shy. When frightened, he plunges his head between the knees of loved ones, and he cowers at the sound of a raised voice. He likes to sleep beside Wolfe, his favorite human, both of them snoring away like chainsaws.

"His life is just going from loveseat to sofa, and sofa to loveseat," says Kit Wolfe, Larry's wife -- and George's de facto mom.

"He's just a big goofball," Larry Wolfe says.

Which is why neither one of them believed it when George's breeder first implored them to show the dog. The breeder had seen pictures of the majestic 10-month-old and thought he could be a real contender for champion status.

Larry Wolfe was curious, so he took George to a show at the Howard County Fairgrounds just for kicks. They were novices in a ring with more experienced dogs, and the presentation was an all-around disaster, but Wolfe was hooked. He started working with professional handlers at smaller shows, encouraging George by slipping him bits of fried kosher hot dog. Before long the dog was winning.

A dog's life

Though Kit Wolfe laughed at George's burgeoning showmanship, she worried about it, too. She was horrified by the poodles in curlers and flat-ironed Shih Tzus she had seen at dog shows, but knew her husband to be a competitive man, determined to succeed in any context. She also knew what could happen to dogs whose masters got serious about the national show circuit. Many of them travel and board with their handlers, living away from home for months, even years.

Her husband insisted that George tossed his jowls for joy at the sheer mention of a dog show, but Kit Wolfe believed the behavior had more to do with his love for Larry Wolfe and processed meat products than an innate competitive drive. And, no matter what, she didn't want a show dog's life for George, who shares the Wolfe name to show that he is a member of the family.

So Kit Wolfe stopped going to dog shows, and she laid down some ground rules: no shows more than a day's drive away, and no overnights with handlers. As a result, while some of George's competitors showed 100 times each year, George was lucky to make 20 appearances in the ring.

He became a champion anyway. A year and a half ago, he accumulated enough points to earn the title and, with it, the chance to apply to the Westminster show.

Last year, all of the hoopla surrounding the big event came to nothing when George was swiftly dismissed from the ring. He returned home to the same old routine: snoozes under Larry Wolfe's desk and weekly bagel runs with his gigantic head sticking out the car window. But even a strong showing at Westminster can change a dog's future, adding to the pressure to breed and show.

If he does well this year, Kit Wolfe isn't sure what will happen. Already the handlers are telling Wolfe to let them take over his training. And he could win -- why not? George has surprised them before, like the time he suddenly flattened a stranger who he thought was threatening Wolfe, bringing the young man down with the force of a Ray Lewis tackle.

In the fall George gained about 15 pounds, which translated into 2 extra inches on his neck and 2 1/2 on his chest.

Last night, in preparation for today's appearance at Westminster, his coat was deep-conditioned, and a pet masseuse cracked the joints in his toes. And although his rivals, Champion Lazy D's Family Tradition (call him Ivan) and Champion Bobaras-Holles Aelfric (Alfie) will be in the ring, too, the No. 1-ranked mastiff recently retired from the business.

Now, as the handler approaches, George keeps his eyes on his master's face, his tail flaying the air whenever Wolfe looks at him. Wolfe borrows George's drool towel to mop the sweat off his own neck.

It's time.

In the ring

The judge, severe in a brown suit, pats George's head before she examines his teeth and watches carefully as he moves around. She's looking at everything from his bone structure to the color of his coat, checking for all the qualities that are desirable in his breed.

From Wolfe's seat high in the stands, which also has a view of the half-dozen green-carpeted show rings and thousands of milling dog fans, George looks gorgeous, wagging his tail as the handler inserts hot dogs into his mouth at regular intervals.

But then the judge's eyes seem to skim over him in the line of mastiffs. She issues a sharp nod, and George is in the first round of dogs led away.

George's turn in the ring is over almost before it began.

Wolfe sighs.

"All that work," he says, shaking his head. Maybe the judge was looking for a stockier chest or a broader forehead. The terrible Ivan appears to possess both, and he wins. Ivan's sister takes another prize.

But Wolfe doesn't wait around for the results. He starts fighting his way through the crowd as soon as his dog leaves the ring.

"I've got to get down to George," he says.

George's tail starts bushwhacking away as soon as he sees Wolfe. He plops his basketball-sized head near his master's foot, then rolls over for a belly rub -- a champion who clearly has no idea that he has been defeated.

Wolfe decides to keep it that way.

"You did really good, George," he whispers into the big dog's ear. "You did great."

Already his own disappointment is beginning to fade, and he is looking forward to getting his dog home.

abigail.tucker@baltsun.com

To see more of George, go to www.chsystosgeorgebailee.com.

For results of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, turn to Sports Page 4D.

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