Animal House

When Vivi the champion whippet made her great escape the Wednesday after Westminster, media types began bandying around a number I knew to be insane:

Vivi, they typed furiously, was worth $150,000.

That stratospheric price tag turned out to be an inflated attempt on the part of Team Vivi to get local authorities motivated to look for their beloved brindle-and-white sighthound. (It worked. And it made many editors salivate, including mine, who furiously waved a note with the word "DOGNAPPING?!?" in front of me as I worked the phone the day of Vivi's disappearance.)

Paul Lepiane, Vivi's co-owner and handler, guesstimates her actual value at anywhere between $5,000 and $20,000.

But even those numbers are misleading if you don't understand the economics of this odd, but endearing subculture. The vast majority of dog shows do not offer cash prizes; instead, most times the big winner leaves with a streaming ribbon and a silver-plated trophy that shouts, "Regift me!"

Meanwhile, a show dog that is being "campaigned," or actively shown and promoted, as Vivi was, can easily rack up $1,000 to $1,500 a month in bills. Where does all the moolah go? To handlers who charge $75 to $100 for each turn in the ring (for Westminster, their fees quadruple), plus boarding fees and pre-determined bonuses if they win big, as well as slick ads in the many show-dog magazines read by judges. You're lucky if you have enough left over for kibble.

If this makes no sense to you, that is as it should be.  Show dogs are losing financial propositions, as is any expensive sport, from skiing to golfing to sailing. "In those hobbies, people don't expect to make money," Paul says, "and neither do we."

Westminster alone can send your checking account reaching for the Paxil. "Nobody makes a penny coming to Westminster," he continues. "Think of how much it costs to fly your dog across the country, pay for hotel rooms and food ... it's thousands of dollars, all in the hopes of winning a ribbon."

And show dogs are only valuable within the confines of the show world. Like a famous Old Master painting stolen from a museum, they are worthless to someone who cannot show legal ownership -- and by extension the right to register their offspring.

And by the same token, show dogs are also a relative bargain. In many breeds, someone seeking to buy a top-quality breeding female puppy with excellent parentage and champions all over the pedigree might pay $4,000 or $5,000, tops. (A far bigger issue than the money is finding a breeder willing to part with such a superlative specimen to begin with.) Compared to the $1,000 to $1,500 that pet stores charge for puppymill puppies of dubious quality and parentage, it's not a very big spread.

Vivi's owners are offering a $5,000 reward for her safe return.