Long before Grumpy Cat and Boo took the internet by storm, there was a silver-gray toy poodle named Masterpiece. He—with the help of his mysterious Russian owner—created a true poodle-mania across the globe, making the curly-haired breed the dog to own for mid-century high society types. On his path toward becoming the most valuable and highly paid dog in the world, Masterpiece walked Paris Fashion Week, traveled to Cuba as an ambassador of goodwill and served as mascot for his owner’s poodles-only boutique in Manhattan. But that was all before he was kidnapped in May of 1953. 
After emigrating to the United States from Russia in 1926, the charming bon vivant who called himself “Count” Alexis Pulaski—although there was no evidence he held any lofty title in his home country—quickly melted into the high society of New York City. He was a dog breeder and groomer. And after babysitting a friend’s poodles in 1939, Pulaski became enchanted with the breed. Or perhaps obsessed. 
Pulaski began breeding poodles and eventually turned his attention to opening Poodles, Inc., a beautifying utopia specifically for the curly-haired canines. The doggie haven opened in 1946 at 51 West 52nd Street, steps away from 21, the famous speakeasy that’s still around today. Poodles, Inc. offered 16 different hairstyles for poodles such as the Mae West bouffant and the Sailor Clip, a cut in which the poodles’ legs were partly shaved to look like they were wearing Navy-esque bell bottoms. 
That same year, Pulaski became particularly enamored with the largest pup in his new litter of toy poodles. The eight-pound, nine-inch-tall dog “looked like an aristocrat,” and “had the soul of a rowdy stevedore,” Brynn White, an archivist for the American Kennel Club told journalist Phoebe Judge. “It was as though Masterpiece himself were the very beginning of the breed,” Pulaski mused about his adorable pup. Pulaski named the little silver dog “Pulaski’s Masterpiece.” 
Part of why Pulaski was so taken with Masterpiece was because of the dog’s personality. One night upon noticing that his owner had neglected to put a piece of paper down for him to relieve himself on, Masterpiece nudged a playing card over to the paper’s usual spot. Pulaski was impressed by the dog’s thoughtfulness. Masterpiece also wowed party guests from all over the world with tricks performed at Pulaski’s Upper East Side apartment. In his most famous trick, Pulaski—a vehement anti-communist—would ask Masterpiece, “Are you a Communist?” The dog would shake his head no. 
In 1947, Pulaski began entering Masterpiece in competitions, starting with the Westminster Dog Show. Masterpiece didn’t win but he did rack up enough points to become a regular fixture on the dog show circuit all over the U.S. The poodle traveled with an entourage that included a bodyguard who hand-fed him during “moody spells”, a personal hairdresser, a former Bronx Zoo lion tamer who taught him new tricks and Lucy Copestake, a dog handler and Masterpiece’s traveling companion. 
With his entourage in tow, Masterpiece jetsetted to Paris, where he was mobbed by photographers from LIFE magazine. He walked in Paris Fashion Week, where designer Marcel Rochas presented a gray wool dress named after the dog. At a Paris dog show, Masterpiece became so overwhelmed by the size of the audience that he had to be perched atop a 15-foot tall platform to await police rescue. As a side hustle, Masterpiece also booked modeling gigs advertising everything from women’s stocking to telephones. His exorbitant modeling fee was $25 an hour, which was more than what most human models made, White said. Some of his ads appeared in the fashion Bible Vogue. 
Masterpiece’s main gig was as a stud dog—and he was lent out to paying customers to breed litters of high-class puppies. (Judy Garland was the lucky owner of one of Masterpiece’s heirs.) Given his status, not just any female poodle was deemed a proper mate. Pulaski said that Masterpiece shook his head no to any mating offer worth less than $500. As a stud and model, Masterpiece earned $11,000 a year, a six-figure salary in today’s dollars. 
At the height of the dog’s fame, a lavishly wealthy Pakistani prince named Aly Khan came to Pulaski with a proposal: The prince wanted to buy Masterpiece as a gift for his wife, the hugely famous, but troubled, actress Rita Hayworth. (The couple are pictured, above.) Money was no object, and Khan offered Pulaski the princely sum of $25,000 (nearly a quarter of a million dollars today). Pulaski refused. From then on, Masterpiece was deemed the “most valuable dog in the world.”
Masterpiece’s fame just kept on building. In one of his most famous exploits, the dog led a parade of 70 fellow poodles up Fifth Avenue as a publicity stunt for the department store Milgrims. In the week leading up to the Westminster Dog Show, the poodles played in the store window next to displays of faux fur garments modeled after their own curly coats. In another window, Masterpiece lounged in a green velvet throne, White says, watching over the clamoring crowds of Midtown Manhattan. Police had to control the scene, which Pulaski dubbed the “Miracle on 57th Street.” 
Like any good royal, Masterpiece had a charitable side. He traveled to Cuba as an ambassador of goodwill, and to Haiti, where the government awarded him with a medal. He also made his rounds at charitable fashion shows and benefit galas. But he was best known for his frivolity: In April 1953, Masterpiece went on the popular television variety show The Dave Garroway Show to model Easter ensembles for dogs. That doggie fashion show would be the last time anyone ever saw him in public. Just a few short weeks later, Masterpiece would disappear without a trace when he was taken from his owner’s posh salon and boutique. While Pulaski was in the building. 
One afternoon in late May, at around 1:15 in the afternoon, Pulaski told police that he left his usual work area on the main floor of Poodles, Inc. to take a phone call. He was gone no more than 15 minutes, he said, but when he came back upstairs and called out for Masterpiece the poodle didn’t come. That wasn’t like Masterpiece. Pulaski’s staff searched the store from top to bottom, but the tiny dog was gone—and Pulaski seemed devastated. He compared the loss of his prized poodle to the loss of a $300 million gem, according to the archivist at the American Kennel Club: “I can’t understand who would take the dog. Stealing a dog like that is like stealing the Hope Diamond,” he said. 
The day after the alleged dognapping, someone came forward claiming to have seen a dark-haired woman in a red coat leaving Poodles, Inc. at about 1:30 PM with a small gray dog. Poodle owners and their pups were in and out of that shop all of the time, but the witness said the whole thing struck her as strange because the dog wasn’t on a leash. So, did Masterpiece know the woman? Did he, in fact, go willingly? Perhaps with the blessing of his owner, Pulaski? Or was it another gray poodle the witness had seen leaving the premises that day? 
In 1953, poodles were the most popular dog in the United States—and also the most kidnapped breed, says White. At the time Masterpiece disappeared, there had been seven or eight poodles across the country that had been kidnapped and held for ransom, a phenomenon that was later fictionalized in Patricia Highsmith’s 1972 novel, A Dog’s Ransom. But no one ever contacted Pulaski with a request for cash. If Masterpiece had indeed been dognapped, it hadn’t been about money. 
Pulaski papered New York City with thousands of posters calling for the return of his missing dog. The police began an investigation—and an alarm to be on the lookout for this tiny, silver-gray poodle was issued in 13 states. 
Despite a deluge of media coverage, and police on the lookout in more than a dozen states, no new clues or witness reports appeared. The theories about what really happened started flowing: Could the woman in the red coat have been a communist, out for revenge against anti-communist Pulaski and his pup? Was this all a big publicity stunt? Or, could Masterpiece have simply run away from his “glamorous” life and stage-manager master? 
According to the American Kennel Club, that afternoon in 1953 wasn’t the first time Masterpiece had gone missing. At 9 months old, he escaped into the New Jersey woods, only to turn up on a kennel’s front steps three days later. Another time, he fled Poodles, Inc. while Pulaski ran an errand and took cover in a Park Avenue linen shop, where police came to retrieve him. Perhaps Masterpiece was unhappy with his life of labor, no matter how luxurious it looked from the outside looking in. Could Pulaski have been a less-loving master than he seemed? 
In the months after Masterpiece’s disappearance, Poodles, Inc. became a kind of a shrine to the little dog. “The entire shop felt like a memorial to the dog,” a reporter wrote at the time. There were framed photos of Masterpiece everywhere, and his green velvet throne—empty—still held a place of prominence in one corner. 
Three years after Masterpiece disappeared, there was still no trace of the dog. And without his goldmine pet earning six figures a year, Pulaski shuttered Poodles, Inc. in 1956. Meanwhile, the trail of the missing poodle had gone cold. No one knew where Masterpiece was—or if they did, they weren’t telling. 
Dogs and cats go missing, run away or are stolen every day in this country. Sometimes they’re found through “missing” posters, or by the police, or via online neighborhood message boards. Other times, the animal stays gone, and its owners never learn the truth about what happened. They’re left forever wondering where their beloved pet is now. That was the sad fate for Masterpiece and Pulaski. The “greatest dog in the world” had disappeared, from the shop, from Pulaski’s life, from the pages of Vogue—never to return. And no one ever learned the truth about what really happened that afternoon in 1953. 
Pulaski never got over the loss of his prized poodle, and he never realized his lofty goal of making the world love the breed as much as he did. But he didn’t stop trying. Every year, Pulaski wrote a detailed account of Masterpiece’s life and travels from the poodle’s perspective. He printed up these booklets at a cost of thousands of dollars, and sent them to his posh friends for the holidays. In the final booklet, printed the year Masterpiece disappeared, Pulaski wrote, “Each year the booklets have been of a different color with the thought in mind that when Masterpiece was finally called to join the other dogs in the green pastures of their Paradise, the cover of the last booklet would be black—the traditional color of mourning. This I no longer believe I should do, for as long as his children, his grandchildren, and his great-grandchildren are living among us, Masterpiece in spirit will always be with us.”
A Photographic History of the Day the “Greatest Dog in the World” Disappeared
An iconic celebrity dog was kidnapped from a posh poodles-only salon in New York City in 1953. But who took him? And why?
