Everyone loves this dog except...
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NewsTranscript
00:00 [meow]
00:01 When he first arrived home, cats hated him.
00:04 [meow]
00:05 [meow]
00:06 I'm Kelly and this is Tony's story for GeoBeats.
00:09 I've never come across a dog like it.
00:11 [meow]
00:13 I think sometimes, how are you real?
00:14 He looks like he can't be real.
00:16 [meow]
00:18 It's a combination of a hippo, manatee and a teddy bear
00:21 all into one package.
00:22 I don't know anyone that could meet him
00:25 and just not fall in love with him.
00:27 [meow]
00:29 They seized him from a gang of guys.
00:31 They were backyard breeders.
00:32 [meow]
00:33 I think some of them were actually in prison in the UK.
00:36 [meow]
00:37 He was taken when he was about eight weeks old.
00:40 It was an ongoing court case
00:42 and he couldn't be rehomed until the court case was settled.
00:45 So Tony was in the shelter for about five months
00:51 and just knowing him now,
00:53 the kennels must have been just absolute hell for him.
00:56 [meow]
00:57 He's basically just a baby.
00:59 He needs to be with someone all the time and just cuddled.
01:03 So we brought him home and he was just super stressed.
01:06 Coming from kennels to him,
01:07 it was kind of difficult to see his actual character.
01:10 [meow]
01:11 Up.
01:13 Up.
01:14 But just after a couple of weeks, it was so sudden.
01:16 He just literally was like,
01:18 "Oh, okay, this is home.
01:20 This is a bed.
01:21 This is a sofa.
01:22 I'm just going to lay on all of these things and sleep all day."
01:26 We live in a seaside town in Cornwall,
01:28 literally a couple of hundred yards from the beach.
01:31 And I can remember him just looking at his face
01:33 and you could see he was just like,
01:34 "Oh my God, I can run around.
01:36 This is crazy."
01:37 He's got two cat sisters that he has to live with
01:39 and he was just like, "This is great."
01:41 But they hated him.
01:42 Tony is just the biggest love bug I have ever encountered.
01:46 He literally has a morning routine
01:52 where he'll get up, eat his breakfast, have a walk.
01:54 Then he gets back into bed with my husband
01:57 and just cuddles in as close as he can get under the covers.
02:00 It's really funny because at work,
02:02 we own a car restoration company.
02:04 He'll just be working on a car
02:06 and he'll just look down and he'll run to the car.
02:08 He's scared of really random things.
02:10 We got a tape measure out and he just was so scared.
02:13 He walked in the night, it was dark and windy.
02:16 He'd be walking along like crazy,
02:18 just looking over his shoulder, really.
02:20 Just insecure and jumpy.
02:21 Basically a big baby of everything.
02:24 Coming in.
02:24 Oh!
02:25 I think the guys that he was seized from
02:30 were breeding for certain genetic traits
02:33 like the muscley kind of status dog,
02:36 which we always laugh about
02:37 because he would be completely useless.
02:39 The other night, my husband was cuddling him
02:42 and then he was just staring at him
02:43 and I was like, "What are you doing?"
02:45 He was like, "I just love him so much."
02:46 And I said, "I literally think my husband loves the dog
02:49 more than he actually loves me."
02:51 They're just like this duo.
02:52 I don't know what's happened.
02:54 Dad is boy 1000%.
02:55 I'd like to say mine, but he's not.
02:57 Tony come!
02:59 He's a local celebrity
03:01 and so much so that people don't know me,
03:04 they know him.
03:05 When I'm walking for him, they'll be,
03:06 "Oh my God, is this Tony?"
03:07 I've actually had a lady who was petrified of dogs.
03:10 She met him and she ended up sitting with him
03:12 on the floor with him in her lap
03:14 because she was like, "Oh my God, he's just so lovely."
03:23 He just wants to play with them so much.
03:26 Maybe one day he'll get his dream
03:34 and they'll cuddle up to him.
03:35 (soft music)