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there's no no mystery at all why it's been such a popular breed and not only just among uh
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Rich old ladies but with with people all around the world of of all different uh backgrounds and uh
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socio-economic uh circumstances Spud bacone he's the managing editor of the American Kennel Club Gazette which
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has been published monthly without a single Interruption since 1889. it's a remarkably cool dog no more handsome dog
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either they're beautiful animals very smart but complex and that's what makes them so
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companionable they have a complex character kind of a human-like character and that's what endears them to owners
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especially is that very interesting Almost Human personality that a good poodle will exhibit
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[Music] 1955 a now defunct tabloid reported that when a girl makes the big time she
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traditionally acquires three things minks gems and a poodle women were even cutting their own hair short and
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fluffing it up to look like poodles Elizabeth Taylor was said to have done this with her hair to look more like her
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tiny poodle in 1950 New York City uh women were still looking to Paris for fashion to Europe for literature for
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architecture for any kind of a refined Pursuit so on uh you know in the Upper East Side
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of New York City Circa 1955 you bet a wealthy old Widow with a lot of money was going to be seen with with with a
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poodle the American Kennel Club is the governing body for the world of purebred dogs managing the National Registry
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they're basically The Gatekeepers of what counts as a purebred dog do you have a dog I do not I have two
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cats but you like dogs I would assume yes but in my uh Eternal effort to remain impartial among our dog fanciers uh I
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don't have a dog so I'm free to report on the fine qualities of any one of our purebred breeds without uh fear of being
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biased towards my own breed so if I asked you your favorite breed you wouldn't tell me I certainly would not
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they're all God's children we love them all equally here what's interesting is that the lobby of
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the American Kennel Club on Madison Avenue looks exactly as you might think the lobby of the American Kennel Club
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there's a lot of dog paintings and dark wood yes and you may have also caught the skeleton of early Fox Terrier
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belgrave Joe is just around the corner this is Bryn white I met her in the library of the American Kennel Club in
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New York City she's the archivist for the AKC so I manage our book and ephemera and photograph and archival
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collections all in relation to the development appreciation and sport of the purebred dog you're wearing a dog
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pin do you always wear dog pins or dog themed things when you come to work I don't today was a special
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occasion but I I am um I'm a terrier person a terrierist uh a terrier is yes that's what that's
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what I've been told um I grew up with an obscure breed of dog I'm a librarian by trade but I think
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I got my foot in the door because they thought I could understand because I grew up with a Welsh Terrier
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I've been thinking about this is real a black Russian terrier oh that is a very interesting choice I like
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it because they're so big and in the Wikipedia page they're pulling a little cart full of
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stuff [Music] home of the purebred dog what is the AKC position on mutts I don't think I should talk about that
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okay for much of the 20th century the Beagle topped the American Kennel club's list
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of most popular breeds but then in the 1950s things changed and the poodle started to catch up
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this is due in large part to one man a mysterious Russian count named Alexis Pulaski his obsession with poodles and
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one poodle in particular a dog he named Pulaski's Masterpiece not only put the dog on the map but would lead to a
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13-state alarm and in the end break Pulaski's heart I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
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[Music] count Pulaski was born in Saint Petersburg in 1895 and arrived in New York City in 1926
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little is known about his early life except he apparently served in the Russian Imperial Army and was adamantly
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anti-communist and a big supporter of the Tsar he's circulating in the upper echelons
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of society he's using his his title and his accent and his wit to kind of Institute himself among
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um kind of the Uptown crowd of New York City one of the men he meets is named Gilbert
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Khan a wealthy New York City Banker Gilbert Khan is a poodle man while count Pulaski grew up around Doberman
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Pinschers and Pulaski agrees to babysit Khan's poodles he babysits these poodles in
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1938 and it's love Pulaski was so taken with these poodles that he wanted to be around them all the
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time he starts a breeding program and then gets Gilbert Khan and a few other Rich New Yorkers to bankroll a new store
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poodle thing what is poodles Incorporated it is located on West 52nd Street a few doors
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down from the famous 21 club and it is a you would say that is a salon a boarding house or Resort
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and a boutique or Haberdashery if you will and it caters exclusively to poodles it's a club for poodles or it's a club
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for poodle owners it's it's a store to purchase goods for your poodle and to get your poodle's hair cut and then to
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also order a poodle while you're going out on your exotic vacations that don't involve the dog
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although they're mostly selling things to facilitate you taking your dog on your exotic vacations
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poodles Inc was an immediate success the sky was kind of the limit they offered 16 different hairstyles
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[Music] what what types of hairstyle um they had one that was named after May West the Mae West was like a buffond
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they offered a flat top called the Tom Collins if you wanted your dog's legs shaved to
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look like it was wearing bell bottoms you could ask for the Sailor clip you could even get your poodle a mustache so
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were they also dying the dogs I'm not sure if they did a poodle's ink but that did in this kind of craze instigated by
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Pulaski they were uh they did offer rinses for coats of dogs to be dyed pink blue green whatever color you were so it
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seems to me that what you're saying is that that poodles in the 1950s they started
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to become a showpiece so it was a part of your outfit that you're wearing and because you they were so customizable
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you could really have something that looked unique to you because you could pick the color you could change the
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haircut yes Pulaski also had a fashion line for poodles that kept up with what was
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trendy he convinced high-end designers to create dog versions of whatever they were selling to department stores so a
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year after the store was open Pulaski has a litter at on August 4th 1946 and there is the largest dog in the litter
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he takes a special liking to he observes him over the course of six to eight weeks and decides that
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this dog is something special and then subsequently named him Pulaski's masterpiece
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uh he just saw this in a charm in this dog he saw a capacity to um to be trained in the dog he later talks
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about how he admired masterpiece's clean habits he he would lay out a piece of paper when he went to bed at night in
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case the dog needed to relieve himself while he was asleep and and he did not do that one night and woke up and
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Masterpiece had nudged a little trading card into the spot he just searched for anything he could too
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to replace the missing piece of paper so so he he views this dog as having very Vista critic
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tendencies when Masterpiece was one year old count Pulaski showed him at the Westminster
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dog show the most prestigious show of the year Masterpiece didn't win but he did get
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attention Pulaski would continue to enter Masterpiece and competitions but it was
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important to him that dogs were primarily bred to be members of the family he said the word pet often is
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used in a derogatory sense by show breeders but the poodle should be bred primarily as a pet for temperament
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willingness to please and a radiation of charm it was originally a hunting and retrieving dog is often used in in Duck
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hunts and that you know show dog silhouette idea we all have of the poodle was actually born in practical
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purposes like uh trimming the legs made it easier and more quick for them to to swim they even say putting ribbons on
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their tails was a way they kind of followed them uh through the fields so because a standard poodle at least has
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kind of a wild haircut with with a lot of hair up front and then none and then a little bit of hair
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sometimes around the ankle yes that's what we call the lion cut and it and it is said to have evolved from how they
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were cut back in the day when they had a more functional purpose would you describe what Masterpiece look
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like yes I should say he was a gray toy poodle he was about nine and a half inches tall and about eight pounds
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really little really little and he was not I he was not cut in that lion cut we associate with show poodles uh Pulaski
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designed what he called a rigid masculine cut for Masterpiece that just trimmed him in the midriff
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um so he so he had his own silhouette what what does a rigid masculine cut even mean
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I really don't know um Pulaski was really into these kind of contradictions in relation to the dog he
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liked to joke that he was the most useless looking utility dog in the world that he looked like Louis the 16th
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posing for a portrait in his little gray wig that he looked like an aristocrat but he
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had the soul of a Rowdy stevedore um that's kind of one of the things I love about him is is yeah just these
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it doesn't even make sense at a certain point these Notions he has about this dog
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embodying everything at the same time very quickly Masterpiece became a staple of New York society and count Pulaski
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was invited to exclusive cocktail parties Masterpiece was the guest of honor and would perform his tricks for
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all these rich socialites one of his trainers was the former lion tamer at the Bronx Zoo he's giving Masterpiece
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special instruction in Old circus tricks and tragically Dives before Masterpiece
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learns to walk a tightrope but Masterpiece does walk on his hind legs Pulaski's favorite trick is to ask are
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you a are you a communist Masterpiece and he shakes his head no um that that I think a lot of his a lot
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of his tricks kind of involved him interacting with Pulaski like it was kind of a two-person show and and and
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expressing himself through Grunts and Barks and head chicks or however his fee for modeling was 25 an hour
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often more than the humans he was posing alongside he showed up in ads for stockings beer
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Furs he did a spread in Vogue even at his own bank account it was reported that Rita Hayworth's
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third husband Prince Ali Khan offered Pulaski 25 thousand dollars for Masterpiece and count Pulaski turned him
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down this led to masterpiece's reputation as the most valuable dog in the world there's no system for for measuring this
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but I mean the system wasn't that he said that Masterpiece claimed 11 he made eleven thousand dollars a year in stud
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and modeling fees and by stud fees we mean um the right to breed the female dog to masterpiece
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the owners of masterpiece's Offspring include Judy Garland Eva Peron Gary Cooper the list goes on and on
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Masterpiece was invited to Paris for Fashion Week he went to Cuba as a Goodwill Ambassador he performed on
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television this nine-inch dog jumping over a line of Great Danes he led a parade of 70 poodles down Fifth
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Avenue to the department store milgrams where he took his seat in the front window on a green velvet throne
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all of this to say that Masterpiece was well known you couldn't get much more famous or recognizable
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it's around 1 15 in the afternoon in late May at poodles Inc and the usual the usual crew is there Pulaski Fields a
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phone call and he and his associate go downstairs and they're gone about 15 minutes when
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they returned they found some customers who were interested in purchasing a dog whenever someone came in to buy a new
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dog it was Pulaski's Habit to show off masterpiece they couldn't have Masterpiece of course
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but they could be assured they were getting something close he called for the dog but Masterpiece didn't come
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Pulaski went downstairs to the basement to look for him no Masterpiece they searched the store
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the dog was gone [Music] the next day a person comes forward claiming to have seen a dark-haired
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woman in a red coat leaving the store at around 1 30 P.M with a little gray Dog healing by her
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side and the only reason he even registered this as you know not common sight was
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that the dog did not have a leash and so it is deemed based on this very deemed credible witness that Masterpiece
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has been kidnapped or dog-napped if you will word of the dog napping reached newspapers all across the country one
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article read an anti-communist poodle dog disappeared today and its owner said a female may be the cause of it all
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count Pulaski pleaded with the public for masterpiece's safe return he offered another poodle in masterpiece's place
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he said I can't understand who would take the dog stealing a dog like that is like stealing the Hope Diamond
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dog groomers all over the city were put on alert to watch for Masterpiece thousands of leaflets were spread across
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New York they start making appearances on TV shows they have headlines they they select masterpiece's grandson
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Johnny as as the the Ken most closely resembling him and they start trotting him out on the TV shows they do an on
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the scene Recreation of the dog napping and they are said to have sent out a 13-state alarm
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on this dog one of the theories is that because Masterpiece was so well trained he rarely barked so maybe he just calmly
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followed the woman in the red coat out of the store as Pulaski himself had once said what he
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loved so much about the poodle was its temperament and willingness to please what do you think happened to
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masterpiece I mean maybe it was premeditated maybe this woman saw that big parade of poodles to
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Milgram and thought there's going to be an opening in here somewhere or maybe she just saw the opportunity at the
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moment it presented itself Maybe I mean maybe there was no Criminal Intent originally Poss we can't allow
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for the possibility that Masterpiece just went with her I said I'm getting away from this count I'm sick of this
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count I mean maybe he didn't understand that it was Forever the full ramifications for his action but I mean
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there's a chance this woman thought that she was rescuing him from this kind of silly egomaniac or endless Life as a
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show Pony um maybe it was a vindictive act against Pulaski maybe it was a communist she was
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wearing a red coat um it kind of goes on and on foreign Polaski held out hope that whoever had
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taken the dog would send a ransom note that there was some possibility of Masterpiece coming home I mean all these
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things that he that he cultivated about the dog about the breed and this dog in particular like led to this happening
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and and and the one thing is is dog napping was starting to happen poodles are the most kidnapped dog there had
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been a high profile case of of seven or eight poodles being held for ransom I mean even Patricia Highsmith wrote a
00:19:30
novel in the early 70s a dog's Ransom but that was about the kidnapping of a poodle was like the initiating action
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but obviously Ransom did not factor into this I mean there's a chance he was sold
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on the Black Market Ali Khan in some way possibly but and and this was this was a
00:19:52
problem before the new problem members which was puppy mills but this was something that would happen for people
00:19:59
who wanted a purebred dog I mean the value of the dog is knowing who the dog is and asserting
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asserting who this dog is I mean he was kidnapped at the height of his Beauty and manhood according to Pulaski but
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when he was kidnapped he was considered the most famous off-screen like like the
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most famous dog who wasn't on a Hollywood star who wasn't written tin or Lassie um and if you can't
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say this is him then I don't know where the where the value is but I mean it seems very feasible that
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you just start cutting that dog differently and who's ever gonna know it's Masterpiece I mean the dog could
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just be could have just like lived out his days in Staten Island as a domesticated pet I mean
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there's just I mean [Music] there's no telling Masterpiece was never seen or heard from
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again almost a year later a reporter visited poodles Inc and wrote that the entire
00:21:07
shop felt like a memorial to the dog there were still photos of Masterpiece all over the walls in one corner
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masterpiece's green velvet throne with canopy sat empty in 1956 Pulaski close-up shop
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he turned his attention towards a poodle encyclopedia he called it Pulaski on poodles
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he had a hard time finding a publisher though Winston Churchill a poodle man himself did ask to see a finished copy
00:21:42
in his chapter poodles I have known Pulaski writes extensively about Masterpiece they have a copy at the AKC
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archives it sits alongside a big black scrapbook that Pulaski made he titled it Mr poodle
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himself on the front is what might be the first attempt at photoshopping Pulaski took a picture of himself and
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then pasted a picture of Masterpiece under his arm the poodle held its position at the top
00:22:18
of the American Kennel club's list of most popular breeds until 1982 when it was overtaken by the Cocker Spaniel
00:22:27
today Labrador Retriever [Music] count Pulaski died in 1971 at the age of 73. his obituary in the New York Times
00:22:38
is short but does make space for one important fact in 1953 a silver gray male poodle named
00:22:48
Masterpiece was stolen from the store and never recovered [Music] criminal is produced by Lauren Spore
00:23:03
Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Johnny Vince Evans special thanks to Crystal duhame
00:23:10
matild erfelino is our intern Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal you can see
00:23:18
them at this iscriminal.com or on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show Criminal is recorded in the studios of
00:23:26
North Carolina public radio wunc we're a proud member of radiotopia from PRX a collection of the best
00:23:34
podcasts around shows like mortified mortified features adults doing the most embarrassing thing possible getting up
00:23:42
on stage and reading the Diaries love letters and melodramatic poetry they wrote while they were growing up
00:23:50
this February mortified is starting a TV series The mortified guide it's available on Amazon and Netflix here's a
00:23:58
preview when I was a kid I felt really isolated and alone my first kiss you immediately just like stuck his whole
00:24:05
tongue down my throat I didn't know what sex was when I got my period my mom threw some maxi pads I mean it's just
00:24:11
like here you go figure it out dear diary dear Journal September 13th July 29th I've never been attracted to a
00:24:20
man in the way that I'm attracted to countless women maybe that means something dear diary my body is flat
00:24:28
ugly and unpubicized thanks Mom thanks Dad thanks God writing the diary I think it did help in
00:24:39
a lot of ways I had to learn to not give up that I was someone that had a lot to
00:24:44
kids I'm sorry I'm so nervous this is a secret journal so get out before I [ __ ] slap you
00:24:52
special thanks to adzerk for providing their ad serving platform to radiotopia I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
00:25:01
[Music] foreign [Music]