From the farm to the tropics, the big city lights to the heat of the desert, basketball and life have taken triple Olympian Cayla George right around the globe.
And while the game has always been a constant from young South Aussie to professional basketballer and mother, so has George’s love of dogs.
“I grew up on a hobby farm until I was about 10 years old in Wistow, it’s not far from Mount Barker which is about 35 minutes from the city of Adelaide,” she says.
“We had cows, sheep, geese, pigeons, at one stage we had a friend’s horse or two to help us with the paddock grass and grew up with some Dobermans and cats.”
Today, when George isn’t on court, she’s at home in Cairns with husband Kailou, daughter Pearl and the other four members of Team George, which like a good basketball team are both big and small in stature.
There’s the OG’s - husky x border collie Coco, 13, Siberian husky Caesar, 11, and more recent additions miniature dachshunds Havana, 4, and Stanley, 3.
“It is a crew but we wouldn’t have it any other way,” George says.
“I think having dogs has had a huge positive influence, with their loyalty and companionship. They are the best therapy. We go on massive walks, the beach, the park, there are some beautiful creeks that they love to swim in.
“It’s very grounding and resetting for me when I can just get out in the morning and walk, just the dogs and I, Pearl and Kailou are still asleep. I get out really early, especially in Cairns because it gets quite hot after 7am.”
The life of a professional basketballer means shifting around the country, and globe, to play and when George’s was rewarded for phenomenal form in 2023 with a WNBA contract with the Las Vegas Aces, where she’d go on to win a championship, she was quickly on the move.
“I had no intent to go back overseas before I got Havana, we had the older two dogs who had got used to us being away a little bit and my mum or dad had watched them while we were in Europe or America (when George played for Phoenix Mercury).
“We got Havana, and a couple of years later I was going to Vegas and we had Stanley as well at that point. I thought I was going to be home (in Australia) for the rest of my career but there was an opportunity I couldn’t say no to and I have no regrets.
“They always know I come back, whether it’s six months or 10 minutes to Coles and back.”
George has passed her love of animals on to her daughter, who turns three this year and is besotted by her fur siblings.
“Pearl is not afraid of any dog she sees on the street which is a bit scary sometimes. But ours, she puts them in headlocks and noogies them and loves them up. She sees how I kiss them so she kisses them hard and loves them.
“She helps me feed them. We love having all our dogs in our lives, it does get a bit crazy but my big dogs are very much in routine, they’ve very good and pretty chilled and then we’ve got the dachshunds and they think they’re in the huskies’ routine but they bark a whole lot more.”
