Meet Floyd, the Small-But-Mighty Emotional Support System of Olympic Swimmer Chase Kalisz

Two-time Olympic medalist Chase Kalisz has a special relationship with his English bulldog, Floyd, who helps him navigate the ups and downs of mental health as a professional athlete. Ahead of Paris 2024, Chase and Floyd have partnered with Nulo for its Fuel Incredible campaign, which is highlighting the relationship between eight Team USA athletes and their pets.

“The biggest thing that Floyd does for me is it doesn’t matter if I have a good day, a bad day, if I swim well, if I swim badly,” Kalisz tells Daily Paws. “No matter what, I walk through my door, he runs up to me every single time, and there’s no better feeling than that in the world. And anyone that’s a pet owner knows how great that feeling is. I can just see him and see his excitement, and it helps me unwind, just relax, and feel loved.”

Inspiration from Michael Phelps

Kalisz’s fondness for English bulldogs stems from childhood, but more specifically, his brother-like relationship with Michael Phelps, who is allegedly also pretty good at swimming.

“I grew up training with Michael Phelps at a really young age, and he would always bring his English bulldog Herman to the pool,” Kalisz says.

But Herman did not inherit his dad’s love of swimming, instead using practice time to get a good nap in.

“Herman would slowly waddle up to the pool deck at the slowest place that he could go, and then he would just plop down and sleep by the pool,” Kalisz says. “And then [Phelps] would get out of practice and Herman would be excited and do his waddle back.”

Bringing Floyd Home

Just a handful of years later, Kalisz would become a bulldog himself by committing to the University of Georgia, home of the Georgia Bulldogs.

“I still in my head at that time really wanted a bulldog, and it probably didn’t hurt that I was surrounded by bulldogs and in bulldog land,” Kalisz says.

But Kalisz was patient and waited until he finished school to take the plunge into dog ownership in 2017. Since then, he’s been the proud owner of Floyd, a now six-year-old English bulldog, who has provided much-needed emotional support to the Olympian in the most stressful, and at times, loneliest years of his life.

“Obviously swimming is not a team sport,” Kalisz says. “My training partners—I consider them very much my teammates, but at the end of the day, you have to step up on the blocks and deal with everything yourself. The stress of training—the mental aspect, the competing—it’s all on you.”

Swimming with Floyd

In addition to routinely relaxing together on the couch, Kalisz has taken Floyd on a couple of aquatic adventures outside the home, including to the pool, just like Phelps and Herman, and to the beach. And it turns out Floyd may be the most talented swimming bulldog in the history of the breed, showing promise from a very young age.

“When Floyd was younger, we had a great doggy daycare in Athens [Georgia],” Kalisz says. “I was there one day, and we put him in the training pool, and he ended up swimming to the deep end. But Floyd’s not much of a swimmer these days, so maybe I’ll get him back in the pool, and we’ll see where he’s at.”

Paris Olympics 2024

Floyd’s swimming adventures may have to wait until Dad returns from the 2024 Summer Olympics, however. Kalisz is a two-time Olympic medalist, winning silver in 2016 and gold in 2020 in the Men’s 400 meter Individual Medley, and has qualified once again.

What about Floyd? Well, you can bet he will be support Dad from afar. “Once I’m racing, he’ll be with my friends, and they’ll put him in front of the TV,” Kalisz says. “And my parents had a watch party with the NBC cameras last time, and they got to bring Floyd up in the video, so I got to see him briefly.”

But Kalisz won’t feel satisfied until he’s reunited in person with his favorite pup.

“I’m just excited to, first and foremost, get through the Olympic games and, you know, hopefully represent our country really well and do my absolute best,” Kalisz says. “But I can’t wait to get home. It’s been a very crazy, hectic year, very stressful. I really can’t wait to get home and just spend weeks of doing nothing with Floyd and just hanging with him.”

And make sure you and your dog catch the 2024 Olympics this summer, which begins July 26 in Paris!