Betty Sherrill on design,
decorators and dogs

That's me standing on the metal ladder with my three poodles, Kim, Chrissy and Issy. In the summer of 2001 we were invited to participate in a group portrait of designers and their dogs and when I arrived at the shoot I was happy to find myself among so many friends. Bunny Williams is an old friend and she was there with her dog, Lucy. Jamie Drake and I know each other from several events we've done together here and in the city-he's very generous with his time. Tony Ingrao is a friend-what a beautiful house he has out here in East Hampton-such interesting landscaping and gardens. Kitty Hawks I've known forever-her mother, Slim Hayward, was a longtime friend of mine. She once asked me to try talking Kitty out of moving to the West Coast. Sadly, I failed at the time, and even today I wished she worked for us at McMillen, [Betty has worked the design house since 1951]. Slim and I had several mutual friends ... Gary Cooper, and also Bill Blass, who lived in my building. I'm wearing a Bill Blass dress in this photo--green and white to cooridinate with my dogs' pink jackets. Sadly, all three dogs have now died and I just can't bring myself to get any new dogs. The last time we lost one (we always had poodles) my husband decided that we needed three as a replacement. They ruled the household and were allowed to roam anywhere they wanted. Poodles are incredibly smart dogs--so much like humans. I guess they felt entitled to sit on the furniture just like us. We set an expensive precedent with this, however, because when we'd go to Florida I couldn't very well put them in the plane's hull in a crate; we ended up flying privately, using Net Jets, so that the dogs could fly with us. And yes, as you might guess, they each had their own seat.