Duo on scent of a no-show dog

Denise Flaim | Animal House

March 16, 2006

They are the Thelma and Louise of the Vivi vigil. And they're not giving up any time soon.

Tina Potter is a schoolbus driver whose depot is near John F. Kennedy International Airport. There, exactly a month and a day ago, a slinky white-and-brindle whippet named Champion Bohem's C'est La Vie - better known as Vivi - got free of her California-bound crate and melted into the marshland.

When Potter, 50, and roommate Rosa Chile, 56, learned of the lost show dog, a crusade was born. They search every day, before, after and between Potter's morning and afternoon bus shifts. Her 50th birthday was Saturday, but the cake is untouched in the fridge.

"I love this dog, and I don't even know her," said Chile as she piloted her gray Honda SUV near Utopia Parkway and Peck Avenue, the Flushing intersection where Vivi was reportedly spotted by a passerby just after 9 a.m. yesterday. "I don't clean my house anymore. All I do is look for Vivi."

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As if in a mind-meld with the duo, Vivi has meandered northward over hill and highway in the last week, with the new report putting her only a few miles from their Hollis home. Over the weekend, search dogs belonging to Oklahoma-based pet detective Karin Goin followed Vivi's scent to a garage in nearby Auburndale. Other obligations took Goin back west, leaving only a handful of locals - and two in particular - to continue the hunt.

"Right here, that's a good one," said Chile, pulling over to a telephone pole across from St. Mary's Cemetery.

"I am the flier queen," Potter said, extracting one of the full-color pages and carefully tacking it to the pole so no corners flapped against the wind.

Retired from schoolbus driving herself, Cuban-born Chile takes chemotherapy pills twice a day for breast cancer diagnosed in 2004. The treatments make her feet and hands sore and red, so she navigates while Potter wields the utility stapler.

Chile drove and stopped, drove and stopped, scanning under cars in brick-pillared driveways, peering into thickets flanking golf-course greens. She trolled through a city Department of Environmental Protection yard, where manhole covers were stacked like Oreos. In Thelma-like stride, she squeezed her truck onto the narrow bike lanes of Kissena Park to survey its pond. "Vivi likes ducks," she said authoritatively. "Though I hope she doesn't eat one of them."

Meanwhile, the two, who own a 4-year-old cocker spaniel, Lily, stop everyone to hand out fliers - dog walkers and sanitation workers, joggers and landscapers. When a man on a bicycle indicated he was deaf and didn't understand, Chile segued seamlessly to American Sign Language. "Five thousand dollar reward - I told him that's a lot of money," she said with a thump of the driver's door.

"This dog went from living on a horse farm in California to running the streets of Queens," said Potter, who's touched by the reverse Cinderella story. "She was a show dog, and now she's a stray dog."

"There are so many places to hide here, sweetie pie," Chile said with a sigh. Then she eased the car out of park and headed toward a promising clump of trees.

For updates on the Vivi search, visit www.newsday.com/animalhouse.