Bob Morris
Ever since her bulldog bit a fox terrier in the elevator last spring, Liz Weston has been forced by her co-op board to use the freight elevator at her Sutton Place South building. She doesn?t think that it?s fair. After she apologised and paid the $600 veterinary bill, she sent a note asking how the terrier?s little tail was healing. She got back a letter from the co-op board?s lawyer demanding she move out.
?We?re all living in the same building in close quarters,? said Weston, whose dog, Theo, happens to be certified to visit hospitals as a therapy pet. She sued her co-op board in February. ?Dogs are dogs,? she added.
That may be, but that doesn?t mean they?re allowed to show it, especially not in the oh-so-carefully controlled and scrutinised upper echelons of society. The dog fight at Sutton Place South is not an isolated incident. High-end hounds and pampered canines seem to be acting out everywhere these days, in doorman buildings, the gated homes of Los Angeles or on manicured Hamptons lawns. And like their tightly wound owners, they can be lightning rods for lawsuits and bad publicity.
Samantha Ronson, the celebrity DJ and former girlfriend of Lindsay Lohan, was mortified last year when the news media learned that her bulldog, Cadillac, had attacked and killed a tiny Maltese at her West Hollywood apartment building.
During New York Fashion Week in February, Thakoon Panichgul had to go on Twitter to deny that his tiny Yorkie, named Stevie Nicks, snapped at interns.
They can be real estate deal-breakers, too, barking and growling at potential buyers. ?If you?re not a dog lover, it can be very off-putting,? said Robert Browne, a senior vice-president at Corcoran, who recently showed a $3-million home in Greenwich Village with a nasty Rottweiler running loose.
Dogs in banks. Dogs in yoga classes. Dogs in wedding parties. They have even invaded luxury boutiques.
Are these dogs getting an unleashed sense of entitlement from their owners? Yes, said David Reinecker, a Beverly Hills dog trainer whose clients include Maria Shriver, Kirk Douglas and Teri Garr. ?The elite are extreme personalities,? he said. ?Some come home from a day at the office of controlling armies of frightened people and then let their dogs rule their lives. The mega-rich and powerful can be very insecure.?
The life of cosseted canines can be harder than it appears. Snooty co-ops have etiquette rules about barking and dog-on-dog interactions in lobbies and elevators. Some buildings even require that dogs be carried on elevators and in lobbies.
Then there are the women who use dogs as security blankets and take them to red carpet events like arm candy. Paris Hilton?s Tinkerbell was known to snap and bite. ?Little dogs sense their owners? fear of strangers and paparazzi, so they growl and snap at them,? said Reinecker, who as a trainer has found that there?s a bull market in bad dogs right now.
Making matters worse, he said, is the fact that owners don?t discipline the dogs themselves. Instead, they throw money at them, expecting a specialist to fix the problem.
?The rich are less hands-on,? said Pat McGregor, the founder of Vancouver Dog Training in New York, who said that she has worked with the difficult dogs of Bette Midler, Robert De Niro and Blaine Trump. ?You can?t blame an animal for not behaving like a person. But just like us, every dog has its own issues because there are no perfect dogs.?