I’ve been trying to get my head around the national news of the past week, and frankly, I can’t. There’s not enough Rendezvous Rye out there to make sense of it. It’s a big, messy wad of twine, and any end you pull on will lead to something absurd, dangerous, or both. The world is badly broken. So we’re not going there.
While doing my best to escape the real news, my newsfeed accommodated nicely, and suddenly was overflowing with articles about a new breed of designer dogs. There were dozens of articles, each borrowing heavily from the others.
The source appears to be an article in New York Magazine by Ben Ryder Howe, in an attempt to give credit where due. Howe’s article describes a couple in Bozeman, Montana — the thoroughly spoiled, brie-and-Birkenstock epicenter of the Treasure State — about a brain surgeon and his wife. They had made a gob of money and moved to Montana. They probably read “A River Runs Through It,” then packed the Range Rover.
They were at a farmers market and saw a booth selling dogs. They thought the dogs were handsome, pretty much adults rather than pups, and took a closer look. The dogs were priced at $150,000. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars. For one dog. Does that include the first shots? And what kind of farmers market sells $150,000 dogs? (See brie and Birkenstocks, above.)
The husband thought that was nuts, but his wife was smitten. The appeal is they are specially trained dogs. The article said they are “military-grade protection dogs with elite danger-sensing instincts, but the warmth and temperament of a family pet.”
The idea seems to be that you have a nice, cuddly dog who can be with you at Starbucks or anywhere — they are trained to fly in private helicopters for that long commute from the Bozeman airport to your ranch on the river. These warm, fuzzy pets are perfect with friends and family, but will rip the trachea out of the UPS driver if he looks at them the wrong way while delivering their gourmet meals. Who wouldn’t want a pet like that?
The dogs are sold as adults, after two or three years of intensive training. Training? For $150,000, they better come with a medical degree and poop Rolexes. The surgeon and his wife bought one. But the dog was lonesome, having spent all its life training with other dogs. So they did the only reasonable thing. They bought another one.
They might have gone to the local shelter and picked up a mutt who would love them forever, but you know. Rich people. How can they expect their elite killer/pet to associate with a shelter dog? Can you imagine a military-grade fur baby hanging out with some rescue from the reservation? Eeew.
These people have an image to uphold. So they bought a second of the Navy Seal dogs. That’s $300,000 in dogs. As a point of reference, the median price for a house in the United States is $419,000, and most people can’t afford that. A large dog like that might live for 12 or 14 years, while a median-priced house will last longer than you. IRS says you can depreciate a killer dog over seven years, and deduct the trainer’s pay. So there’s that.
The breeder said they interview the dog buyers carefully, and won’t sell to just anybody. The buyers have to commit to maintaining the training regimen (i.e., hiring a professional dog trainer to do it for them). And they have to be stupid rich.
One of the articles quoted the trainer as saying she has a “no A-holes” rule when screening buyers. It seems like some rich twit spending $150,000 on a dog trained to kill the neighbor kid basically defines that term. But whatever.
She also said that the dogs were very popular among the members of the Yellowstone Club, the ultra-exclusive private ski area near Big Sky. Which again raises doubts about the “no A-holes” rule.
If they are popular among the Yellowstone Club set, I can only imagine what we will get at Wasatch Peaks. If you haven’t followed that one, Wasatch Peaks is a huge private golf and ski resort over in Morgan where their market is mostly people who think the Yellowstone Club has gone to hell and been polluted by the likes of Justin Timberlake. Once tattooed celebrities start moving in, you might as well be in the Hamptons.
Membership in Wasatch Peaks is very carefully screened. It has no internet presence, and for all practical purposes, the place is invisible. And their members like it that way. Employees are sworn to a level of secrecy that makes the Masons look like gossips.
So among that group, one has to assume that there are a few $150,000 dogs keeping watch, especially now that there is a special airline that flies dogs around the country. Bark Air will fly you and your dog from New York to Los Angeles for $6,000 — one way.
I don’t think there are discounts for shelter dogs or carry-on yappers. There may be a surcharge for dogs trained to rip the pilot’s heart out, but I am not in that market and haven’t seen the rate card.
Did I mention that the world is badly broken and we need to fix it.
Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.