IT'S A YACHT DOG!
NYC's 1 percent spends thousands to get their pups shipshape for summer in the Hamptons
Forget rich people’s problems — summertime in the Hamptons can lead to rich pooches’ problems.
Take Max, a 10-year-old Yorkie whose owner, celebrity hairstylist Marco Maranghello, loves toting him everywhere, including on friends’ yachts. The inseparable pair even wears matching outfits. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing.
“He would get nauseous — he would pee, vomit and foam at the mouth. It was terrible,” said Maranghello, 43, of the maritime woes that once beset Max during their summer yachting excursions from their home in Southampton to nearby hot spot Sunset Beach on Shelter Island. He recalled the horror of fellow passengers: “Their eyes were wide and they clutched their pearls.”
Even the fanciest New York pups aren’t always onboard with the private-jet-and-yacht life. So posh pet parents hire pricey trainers to school canines in the finer things: learning how to sit still on an Italian mega-yacht without jumping in the onboard pool, say, or to stay calm when a helicopter’s propellers start whirring.
“Some dogs start to shake when they see a life jacket. Max would get so nervous,” said Edward Alava, the “canine concierge” who now treats the Yorkie every summer Thursday for $300 a session. “I give him a spa treatment.” Before he heads into his yacht-bound weekend, Max gets a twohour massage and a lavender bath while blueberry and grape candles from France perfume the air and New Age music chimes softly in the background.
It works, Maranghello swears. “[Max is] a scene boy, but without the treatments, he would be a wreck.”
Even when pups don’t get nervous, they need to be taught how to behave in A-list settings.
Besides teaching dogs not to poop on luxe rides, “they literally need training not to scratch a boat,” said Manhattan trainer Andrea Arden, who charges $200 per 90-minute session. “Do you know how many stories we have of people who brought dogs [on a yacht] and destroyed it?”
Doggie claws, it turns out, are like kryptonite to yacht decking. So the dogs are taught to adjust to wearing booties. Desperate clients have even been known to helicopter Arden out to the Hamptons for help. “It’s especially fun if they have their own private plane or helicopter.”
But helicopters and private planes can be nightmares for dogs.
Valerie de Boni, wife of former Coach and Armani head Graziano de Boni, said that schlepping out to Water Mill from the East Side on a chopper with even a few of her seven Malteses used to be “nerve-wracking. It’s shaky, and they didn’t really take to it.”
Now they get special treatment from Alava, who also owns the Dog Store on the Upper East Side and in Wainscott, and his staffers. “The training really helps, but the helicopter is not a good move with them.” On hubby Graziano’s Cobalt day boat, Alava will walk them and help with the life vests. “He makes them calm. And he makes them understand it’s a safe place,” said Valerie.
“When you put a dog on a private jet, you want a dog that lies down and relaxes. But the first time, they’re flipping out,” said Judd Spodek, a trainer and the founder of Sit Happens Inc. So he gets on the plane with the pups. “You fly around and come back. You only have a handful of people who can really [afford] that.”
One of them is Scott Weiss, a 46-year-old doctor who got his pilot’s license so he can fly his family — including Rhodesian ridgeback dogs Sirius and Archie, from the East 34th Street Heliport to the East Hampton airport.
Spodek worked with Weiss’ pooches for about six months to combat their motion sickness, altitude anxiety and general fear levels.
“They’re definitely more calm,” said Weiss. “Whatever I do, my dogs are coming with me. Making the investment, it’s no problem.”
And an investment it is: Spodek can fetch anywhere from $7,500 to $12,000 for extended flight and maritime training.
A couple of seasons ago, a client with a $6.9 million, 130-foot, 3,500-square-foot megayacht wanted his new dog to be able to come down a 10-foot slide attached to the side of the boat and into an inflatable raft in the bay, where staff members would catch him. But the goldendoodle was plagued with seasickness, leading to bouts of explosive vomiting. Spodek charged $11,000 to fix the problem. “Now the knucklehead loves it,” he said of the canine.
Vera, a 3-year-old goldendoodle, has also learned to “adapt” thanks to Alava’s treatments, said her owner, Wendy, who lives in East Hampton and declines to use her last name for privacy reasons.
“Boating may not be her favorite thing — what dog likes to be on a boat? It’s me who likes to go. But if I’m going, I’m taking her, too,” she said.