When Paulette Keller of Largo, Fla., picked Brandy out of a litter of Chihuahua puppies, she didn’t think the now 2-pound dog, who measures just 6 inches from tail to nose, would be her ticket to meeting Oprah Winfrey and Jay Leno.
But Brandy, dubbed the world’s smallest dog in terms of length by the Guinness Book of Records, did just that.
“When I first laid eyes on her, I thought ‘wow’ – I had never seen a dog so small,” Keller told the Associated Press.
Keller and Brandy had been living the quiet life when Brandy’s breeder suggested Keller contact the Guinness organization. “She thought Brandy was smaller than the world’s smallest dog,” she recalls. “I got the application form and filled it out and then a few months later I got a call from the Guinness people, who confirmed she was the smallest.”
“Everything changed after that and Brandy and I went on ‘Good Morning America,’ ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show,’ and ‘The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,’” says Keller, who mashes up 4-year-old Brandy’s food so it will fit in her tiny mouth.
“It was amazing but I would have never had picked Brandy to get famous – it was because she was so adorable.”