7 Tons of Love: A Family Comedy About the World’s Largest...Dog?!

Every family has a pet story. Some families have a dog that eats shoes, a cat that hates gravity, or a hamster that escapes once and becomes a family legend for twelve years. The Whitaker family had Winston, a fourteen-thousand-pound African bush elephant who believed, with complete sincerity, that he was the family dog. He had a trunk, two enormous ears, four feet capable of rearranging landscaping, and the emotional needs of a golden retriever during a thunderstorm.Winston came to the Whitakers as a baby, which is how all terrible ideas become adorable first. He was small by elephant standards, which meant he was already larger than most household appliances but still cute enough to make everybody forget math. Maggie loved him immediately. Jack claimed he was "evaluating the situation," which was father language for also loving him immediately. Ella thought he was beautiful. Ben thought he was a dog with a built-in garden hose. Winston, for his part, decided the family belonged to him.Because no one in town had a handbook called So You Accidentally Own an Elephant, Jack brought home dog training manuals. He believed the principles would be the same: sit, stay, come, heel, gentle, leave it, and rewards for good behavior. To everyone's surprise, Winston learned quickly. To everyone's horror, Winston also performed every command at elephant scale. When he sat, flower beds became history. When he fetched, he brought back branches, fence posts, and once a small tree that had not agreed to participate. When he tried to shake, the family quietly retired the trick for safety reasons.As the years passed, Winston grew from a sweet baby elephant into seven tons of loyalty, appetite, confusion, and love. He greeted visitors like a dog, followed the family around like a dog, feared thunder like a dog, begged for treats like a dog, and stared through windows like a dog who believed the only thing separating him from the couch was unfair architecture. He did not understand that he was enormous. He only understood family, food, praise, routine, and the deep emotional importance of being told he was a good boy.This book is not a guide to owning an elephant, training an elephant, housing an elephant, insuring an elephant, or explaining one to the mailman. It is the story of what happens when love grows larger than common sense. It is about a family who raised an elephant with dog books, good intentions, and very poor structural planning. Mostly, it is about Winston, the biggest dog in the world, who broke gates, crushed furniture, stole watermelons, loved his people with his whole enormous heart, and proved that sometimes a family pet does not fit in the house because the house is the thing that was built too small.