B.C. couple offers Taylor Swift tickets to anyone who can find their missing dog

When Dustin and Holly Gilding adopted a great Pyrenees puppy in March of 2022 they knew George would grow into a very big dog.

“Dustin and I are both around 6' tall, so we like having a big, cuddly guy,” said Holly.

George eventually grew to a whopping 115 pounds. On Sept. 18, a family member took him for a walk on the Matsqui trail in Abbotsford. About two kilometres in, they came upon a coyote.

“George, being the guardian dog that he is, kind of took off after the coyote kind of in defence of the family member,” said Holly.

Despite an extensive online and on-the-ground search, there has been no sign of George since he bolted that day.

“It’s been it's been just shy of three weeks by now. Hope is starting to fade a little bit, we can't lie,” say Dustin. “But at the end of the day, we are just kind of thinking what kind of Hail Mary can we throw out there to at least make sure that as many people as possible know about this situation.”

Holly knew she had something very valuable she could offer as a reward, something Dustin had surprised her with on her 29th birthday: tickets to Taylor Swift’s final Eras Tour concert at BC Place on Dec. 8th.

“What’s going to get people's attention? What’s going to get clicks?" Holly said, describing her though process.

"Any time that you see Taylor's name attached to anything, it gets some attention. So being able to associate her star power to our little dog — it’s worth a try,” said Holly.

So she decided to blitz social media with an enticing offer: find and return George, and the upper bowl tickets — which Dustin was fortunate enough to buy at face value — will be the reward.

“Holly kind of was the one who came up with the idea, and at this point the tickets are hers. So I supported it completely,” said Dustin. “The resale value is high, the value of going to the show is high, but at the end of the day, I don't think there's really any reasonable price that we wouldn't pay if somebody had information to lead us to George."

The couple believes someone may have taken George or he could be surviving in the bush around Matsqui trail.

“He’s definitely a robust guy. He's a Great Pyrenees mix. They're very smart dogs. They're very resourceful,” said Holly.

They hope the lure of impossible-to-get tickets will bring Swifties to the search, and bring their big dog back home.