After Vivi, Everything Changed

The first Westminster Dog Show in the post-Vivi era takes place this week:

It has been nearly a year since a prize-winning whippet named Vivi broke out of her cage on the tarmac of John F. Kennedy airport and bounded away. The 131st Annual Westminster Kennel Club Benched Dog Show starts today, and she hasn’t been found despite the efforts of a dozen searchers.

Among dog owners in the show, the memory of Vivi is anything but faded.

“I was just talking about her. I tell you — it’s scary,” an owner from Michigan, Bobby Bidwell, said in the lobby of the Hotel Pennsylvania. After leaving her 96-pound Otterhound, Marilyn Monroe, in the car for a minute, she realized the risk she had taken.

“I was so scared that someone was going to steal her,” Ms. Bidwell said. “I just kept thinking of the whippet.”

Meanwhile, Vivi’s owner vows never to return to New York:

While the fate of Vivi the whippet remains unknown after she bolted from her travel cage last Feb. 15, Karin Goin believes retracing the dog’s steps at this year’s show would simply be too painful. “I’m not coming to New York . . . it hurts too much,” Goin, 40, said from her California home. “I don’t want to have to be at that airport again.”

. . .

While Goin has not gone back to the world of show dog competitions, she did adopt a puppy a few months ago to fill the void in her life that Vivi once occupied. “Her name is Lucy Brown and she’s a Jack Russell [terrier] mix,” she said. “And, when we travel, she fits in my carry-on bag and I never . . . let her out of my sight.

These people sure have control issues. Back to the Sun article:

There are 2,628 dogs in this week’s show at Madison Square Garden, many of which were brought to New York in airplanes from cities across the country. Owners say this is the riskiest part of the trip, because it is the one time when the dogs are completely out of their control.

An owner from Port Jervis, N.Y., Kimberle Schiff, said she has adopted a new set of security measures for flying.

“I now drill holes in the sides of all my crates and we use cable straps” that have to be cut off, she said.

See also: Vivi the Whippet.