Angel on a Leash (24 page)

So these two smart guys got together, and the concept was underway. Jon found a sponsor, Purina, and now all they had to do was to get the show on TV in a good time slot.

NBC had walked away from broadcasting NFL football games on Thanksgiving a few years prior and had been showing movies, such as
It's A Wonderful Life,
after the popular Macy's parade, but the movies weren't getting much in the way of ratings in spite of a handoff from the highly rated telecast of the parade. From a business standpoint, in spite of huge ratings, the telecast of the parade was not an advertising bonanza, as retailers were unable to purchase advertising for the parade telecast because it was a Macy's exclusive. Low-rated movies that followed were not the answer for advertisers.

So Jon took a swing for the fences, asking for the time slot following the parade. His NBC bosses bought into it. The National Dog Show presented by Purina was born. Wayne told Jon that he wanted me for the television commentary, and Jon liked that idea. I asked Chet Collier if he would approve of my doing the commentary for another dog show. Chet thought it would be a good way to promote the sport and that it would have great value for promoting the Westminster telecast as well, so he gave it his blessing.

At the same time, the NBC guys went directly to John O'Hurley
(Seinfeld's
Mr. Peterman) to see if he would host the show. They had gotten to know John well from the American Century celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe every summer and thought that he would be a good host. They landed him, which was a huge catch for the show.

Sears, Target, and Best Buy signed on. And for that first dog show on Thanksgiving Day in 2002, some 20 million viewers came along for the ride, staying tuned to NBC following the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

John and I had a great time, our numbers were huge, and everyone seemed happy. Not long after this, General Electric (which owned NBC) bought USA Network, bringing my two dog-show-carrying networks together. I couldn't have drawn it up any better.

John has been a great partner over the years. Thanksgiving 2011 will mark the tenth year of the show and our tenth year together. That's a long partnership; compare it with the Westminster telecast on USA, where I have had eight partners in twenty-two years (one of them, Joe Garagiola, for nine of those years). In spite of how that may sound, I'm really not that hard to work with!

John is an entertainer and is perfect for our two-hour, produced-for-television, family show. I'll be sitting there, and I swear that I hear Mr. Peterman speaking. I find myself laughing out loud at lines like these:

“A sheep has crashed the competition!” (Bedlington Terrier)

“Oh Whoopi, we found your hair!” (Puli)

“Here's one that we usually see at the other end of a Frisbee.” (Border Collie)

“This dog looks like it incapacitates its quarry by saliva.” (Bloodhound)

Besides that great wit, he is smart and always has good questions for me, asking what he knows would be of interest to the people watching at home. The greatest pressure he brings me is his status as one of the world's sexiest men (according to People magazine). He's tall (6'3"), has great hair and a great voice, and is a
Dancing with the Stars
champion. It's tough standing next to him; I'm always worrying what that makes me look like!

John is a star, and he's fun to be around because in spite of that star status, he doesn't take himself or the rest of the world too seriously. We have become great personal friends, too. Cheri and I have had a lot of wonderful times with John and his wife, Lisa, and that helps our partnership in the telecast. We have stayed with them in Las Vegas to watch him perform in
Spamalot,
and we have seen him in
Chicago
on Broadway. Cheri arranged for her colleague and our friend Monsignor Thomas Modugno of St. Monica Parish in New York City to baptize their son, William.

When John was writing his first book,
It's Okay to Miss the Bed on the First Jump
(2006), he wanted to include something about therapy dog work. I lined him up with Greer Griffith, our director of programs for Angel On A Leash, and he shadowed her on her regular visits with her dog, Fauna, at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital. He wrote a wonderful chapter about the experience, demonstrating that he really did get it. That didn't surprise me, as I had been listening to his stories about his dogs, Scoshi and Betty, for a few years, and I knew how he loved and lived with them.

We tape the show the week before Thanksgiving at the Kennel Club of Philadelphia dog show, and then the crew comes back and edits it into a two-hour show for TV. We do the voice-over work in the studio on the Tuesday before the show airs on Thanksgiving.

NBC has been a great broadcast partner and a wonderful supporter of the concept that show dogs are real dogs. The network has always welcomed my therapy dog stories and have been supportive of Angel On A Leash as well. In fact, Rufus, the Colored Bull Terrier who was Best in Show at the National Dog Show in 2005 and at Westminster in 2006, has had his legend grow with his work as a goodwill ambassador and Angel On A Leash therapy dog for the National Dog Show since his retirement from the ring after those wins.

Cheri and I also spent a lot of time with Andrea Joyce, the great NBC sports reporter who did our backstage stories from the National Dog Show for years. Andrea was about to get a Goldendoodle, and Cheri was convincing her to make him a therapy dog. Soon Andrea was visiting at Ronald McDonald House New York with everyone's buddy, the indomitable, happy, beloved Reggie.

In 2008, the Year of Uno, United Features Syndicate invited Uno to ride on its
Peanuts
float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, a first for a Westminster winner. I went along to be sure that he didn't fall off, one of those “other-end-of-the-leash” jobs. This experience ranked right up there for me with being on
Sex and the City.
Since our National Dog Show followed the parade, NBC gave us a great plug.

From the live telecast describing the
Peanuts
float:

Meredith Vieira:
“United Features Syndicate brings us the forever-young Peanuts characters and Snoopy's doghouse. Woodstock finds high ground atop Snoopy's abode, waving flags, ready to guide the Flying Ace toward a safe landing.”

Matt Lauer:
“With their love of Beagles, Lucy, Linus, and Charlie Brown play with Uno—he was on our show, remember, [the] first-ever Beagle to win the Westminster dog show. Along for the ride is every dog's best friend, David Frei, host of the National Dog Show, which airs immediately following today's parade right here on NBC.”

On television, you could see me waving and saying thank you to Meredith and Matt up in the booth.

And thank you to NBC.

And thank you to
Best in Show.

“ We cannot put into words what it meant to Cheri and me for Belle to allow us to be the ones on the other end of her leash. ”
Â

Calling All Angels

T
his passage near the end of Suzanne Clothier's wonderful book, published in 2002, says it all. Anyone who shares his or her life with a dog will have to face this reality sooner or later. It reminds us that what we get from our dogs in the relatively short time that they are with us should overcome the grief that we experience when they leave us.

There is a cycle of love and death that shapes the lives of those who choose to travel in the company of animals. It is a cycle unlike any other. To those who have never lived through its turnings or walked its rocky path, our willingness to give our hearts with full knowledge that they will be broken seems incomprehensible. Only we know how small a price we pay for what we receive; our grief, no matter how powerful it may be, is an insufficient measure of the joy we have been given.

—Bones Would Rain from the Sky
Suzanne Clothier

In the spring of 2009, Belle and Teigh were both twelve years old. They were slowing down a bit, but we felt that it was just because they were twelve, not because they were having any problems. They still liked to romp and play and run at Cheri's parents' farm. Angel was starting to do some therapy dog visiting for them, but they were still spending their share of time at Sloan-Kettering and Ronald McDonald House.

One Monday night at the end of April, I noticed that Belle seemed a little distended in her abdomen. She had just eaten dinner, but it seemed to be more than that. Bloat was the first thought, so we watched her closely that night and kept her relatively quiet, but she didn't show any pain or signs of distress. However, the next night she was still distended, so I took her to Animal Medical Center (AMC). They did a number of tests and wanted more, so Cheri took her in the next day. They found fluid in her abdomen (ascites) and elevated liver enzymes and bile acid. They did a sonogram and came back with bad news: cirrhosis and atrophy of the liver. Cheri called me to share the news. We were both incredulous.

Just five months earlier, Belle had undergone a complete workup. Her blood and urine were normal, and she had been doing all of her normal activities. Now, suddenly, she was suffering, occasionally in visible pain. She was going to have to take a number of drugs, including ursodiol (a secondary bile acid), dexamethasone (a corticosteroid), omeprazole (to treat excess stomach acid), SAM-e (s-adenosyl methionine, for pain relief), and vitamin E.

Almost immediately, Belle's condition got worse. She was having trouble keeping her food down, and we adjusted the medications to try to help. She had always had a heart murmur, and we went for an EKG and chest x-rays, checking for “right side heart failure.” We even consulted with a friend, who is one of the top human cardiologists in the country, in hopes of finding some help. If we could have found something going on with her heart, we would have had something to treat, something to keep her going if the liver situation was related to that.

Belle didn't look good, and she had moments when it seemed like she was looking for somewhere to curl up and die. The grim outlook from the veterinarians at AMC was that she had a couple of months to live. We were devastated by the news and devastated that she could be suffering. We wanted to do all that we could to help ease that suffering.

I immediately called Dr. Jean Dodds, a California veterinarian who is the world's leading authority on hematology, immunology, endocrinology, nutrition, and holistic medicine. I had known of Dr. Dodds for many years and was one of her disciples when it came to vaccine protocols, but I had never spoken to her directly. I was able to reach her, and she was more than willing to listen to our challenges and offer some suggestions.

We put Belle on a regimen of milk thistle and Dr. Dodds's liver-cleansing diet (white fish, potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, and eggs). In addition, Belle was getting about eight medications and vitamins per day.

A week later, in the middle of all of this, we all celebrated Teigh's thirteenth birthday.

The next day, unbelievably, Teigh collapsed on the sidewalk during his afternoon walk with our dog walker. It looked to be either a stroke or a seizure, but he was having trouble breathing. He was near home, which, thank God, is only ten blocks from the AMC and only a block away from Ronald McDonald House. Cheri got to the scene quickly with friends, and they all helped get Teigh to AMC very quickly. Once there, he was intubated and sedated while the veterinarians tried to figure out what had happened. They discovered that it was a laryngeal collapse, in which the larynx is paralyzed in the closed position, making it nearly impossible to breathe. It was a bit of a miracle that he had made it the ten blocks without dying.

I joined Cheri at AMC, and soon there was much discussion with the doctors about laryngeal tieback surgery, the normal textbook treatment. But the doctors pointed out that Teigh was not a good candidate for surgery due to his age, the fact that he had pneumonia (which was an additional discovery), and the fact that he had a history of seizures. Being intubated kept him breathing and kept him alive for the moment, but decisions were going to be needed.