The award-winning whippet that escaped from her carrier at JFK Airport has not yet been found. Now authorities are calling off the formal search.
The 3-year old, brindle and white C'est la Vie is valued at $25,000, and somehow escaped while she was being loaded on the tarmac. The details are not clear, but what is clear is that there are some very unhappy and worried owners tonight...
Official search for dog called off
BY LUIS PEREZ and DENISE FLAIM
STAFF WRITERS
February 16, 2006, 3:04 PM EST
The formal search for the award-winning show dog named Vivi, who bolted from her cage Wednesday at Kennedy Airport, was officially called off at midday today.
In the past 24 hours, "the searchers covered the entire airport property of nearly 5,000 acres but did not spot the dog," said Alan Hicks, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Officers patrolling the area, however will continue to "keep their eyes open" for the wayward whippet, he said, adding that Vivi's owners "have left the airport and did not wish to speak to the media."
"I'm just hoping that she's hiding in the wooded area," the dog's breeder, Bo Bengston, said this morning. "If she headed south through a fence into the marshland the cold water would be bad for her. The most horrible thing would be cold water. It could mean the worst."
Bohem C'est La Vie, aka Vivi, was headed home to Los Angeles on an 11:55 a.m. Delta flight when she ran from her cage.
"She's a very tough, calm sensible dog," Bengston said, adding however that "she'd be very hungry by now."
The 3-year-old brown and white whippet, that is worth about $25,000, won an Award of Merit at this week's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden.
Her owners Jil Walton and Paul Lepiane, of California, today said they will stay in New York as long as it takes to find their beloved canine. The couple, who are staying at a Holiday Inn near the airport, said they haven't slept or eaten much since Vivi went AWOL. This morning the Port Authority police drove them around the airport complex searching for the dog.
Asked if a reward will be paid to anyone who finds the dog, a visibly shaken Walton said: "Just get the dog ... anything you want."
The Long Island Breeders Coalition said they have permission from the Port Authority to use her dogs to look for Vivi. The 45,000 JFK employees have been put on alert and the couple have received calls from around the country offering support and practical help.
"I'm sure she's terrified," Walton said today. "I'm hoping she comes out and starts looking for people."
Vivi was last seen in the marshes at the end of the airport runway, and the Port Authority dispatched a helicopter to help locate her. "She's ... totally unflappable, but by now, who knows?" said Bengtson, who also is editor at large of Dogs in Review, an influential show dog magazine. "She's running very far and very fast."
Whippets are elegant, graceful, medium-size hounds that were originally bred by the English working class to hunt rabbits and race for sport.
Vivi was wearing a black wool coat and a collar with her owner's phone number. She has been microchipped, which when scanned reveals the owner's contact information.
Time is of the essence, said Cindy Scott of Colorado Springs, Colo., vice president of the American Whippet Club, who has lost -- and recovered -- four whippets, one on the desert grounds of a maximum-security prison. "If you don't catch them in the first day or two, they hide. Survival takes over and that's all they care about."
Vivi, like other show dogs is valuable, but that's the furthest thing from Walton's mind. "She's my dog -- she sleeps in my bed at night," she said. "She's priceless."
With The Associated Press
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.
[dog news]
[dogs]
No comments:
Post a Comment