If you were to assemble a heist crew entirely out of dogs, what breeds would it consist of?

The Westminster Dog Show is this week and I'm asking the important questions

Feb 11, 2025

This week, hundreds of the world’s fanciest and most well-bred dogs have descended on New York City for the 149th annual edition of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. It’s the crown jewel of competition in the world of canine breeding, and an event I watch on television almost every year. These dogs are the best of the best, and Westminster is a chance for them to show the world what they’ve got.

It’s also the perfect cover story for a heist.

Hear me out.

New York City is one of the world’s great cities. It’s place of immense wealth and culture. Top-tier museums, elite art galleries, lavish townhomes and glittering penthouse apartments—it’s absolutely filled with treasures for the taking. At the same time, it’s the sort of place where no one bats an eye when a rich person brings their dog somewhere it probably doesn’t belong. This is especially true the week of Westminster, when even five-star hotels are rolling out the red carpet for these four-legged luminaries.

I was in New York for a short visit this weekend, and stopped by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While there, amongst the many other priceless works of art, I got to see a T206 Honus Wagner—the world’s rarest and most expensive baseball card.

You know what else I saw at the Met? Multiple dogs.

That experience—plus the fact that I watched the last 45 minutes of Ocean’s Eleven (2001) on cable when we got back to the hotel room that night—gave me an idea. I think it’s possible to assemble an Ocean’s-like crew made entirely of dogs, and I think that crew can steal the Honus Wagner card.

We just have to fill the right roles.

Let’s review.

The Mastermind

Every dog pack needs an alpha, and every heist crew needs someone to take the lead. This is George Clooney’s Danny Ocean—a brilliant mind that can see all the angles, stay one step ahead of the law, and keep the rest of the team in line.

My vote? The Pembroke Welsh Corgi.

Obviously, I’m biased here—I had a Corgi for many years, as you may well know—but I think this is a clear choice. Corgis are intelligent, strong-willed, tenacious and natural leaders. What’s most important, though, is that they are absolutely unscrupulous enough to rob an art museum.

A German Shepherd is a leader, but a Corgi is a criminal at heart.

The Face

The mastermind, of course, is known to authorities. This isn’t their first go around the block, and so they’re going to have to work somewhat in the shadows. You’ll need someone to be the face of the crew—someone affable, easy-going and handsome, the Brad Pitt of the crew.

You’re going to need a Samoyed.

Look at that coat. That’s gotta be a nightmare to keep clean. If you see a Samoyed with a clean white coat, you’re going to trust them without even realizing why, and that’s going to be your first mistake.

The Inside Man

In Ocean’s Eleven, Bernie Mac’s Frank Catton is a dealer at Terry Benedict’s casino—a face known and trusted by security. The Inside Man knows where to go, who’s watching and where the gaps in coverage are.

Our inside man? The Labrador Retriever.

If I am in a building and see a Labrador Retriever, I am going to assume that they work there. Maybe they’re a service dog. Maybe they’re trained to sniff for explosives. Maybe they’re the CFO. I don’t know, but I have never had any reason to distrust a Lab.

The Subject Matter Expert

Our dogs so far have the makings of a strong team, but they don’t know what they’re looking for. Not yet. They need someone with a trained eye—someone like Elliot Gould’s scorned casino owner Reuben Tishkoff.

I’m handing this role over to The Russian Toy.

Look at this dog. This dog has been carried into art museums. This dog drinks champagne at gallery openings. This dog flies first class to Paris inside a Birkin bag. This dog is wanted by Interpol.

The Con Man

This is the Matt Damon character in Ocean’s Eleven, and while he fills a few roles—decoy, pickpocket, etc—ultimately, his job is summed up by Brad Pitt’s Rusty:

Don't use seven words when four will do. Don't shift your weight, look always at your mark but don't stare, be specific but not memorable, be funny but don't make him laugh. He's got to like you then forget you the moment you've left his side.

Specific but not memorable? Likeable but forgettable?

That’s a Goldendoodle.

If you are committed to my premise that this crew is being assembled from Westminster dogs, then of course we must acknowledge that “goldendoodle” is not an AKC recognized breed. That, of course, is this dog’s motive for turning to a life of crime.

Explosives

This is the Boxer.

If you have met one Boxer in your life then you know that this requires no further explanation.

This dog is literally made of explosives.

The Multitaskers

In the Ocean’s crew, Scott Caan and Casey Affleck portray the Malloy Brothers, a pair of relative dimwits with little fear and an appetite for destruction.

In our crew, this would be a pair of Dachshunds.

I firmly believe that both the hilariousness and destructive power of Dachshunds increase exponentially as they are grouped together. Two Dachshunds are four dogs, and three Dachshunds are nine. No one has ever put four Dachshunds together and lived to tell about it. They are less a dog than an element, and one that cannot be transported safely through major cities.

The Technologist

Someone’s going to have to disable the cameras, jam the phone lines, shut off the lasers and re-route the emergency calls. I don’t know how to do any of that, but I trust that an Australian Shepherd does.

Look at this dog. She’s so smart she’s already bored with the premise of this newsletter.

My friend Tracy has an Australian Shepherd who can read. I did not think this was possible but I have seen it done. These dogs could do our jobs better than we could, but they’re too nice to take that away from us.

An aside: we thought our dog Olaf was an Aussie when we adopted him, and it was only months later that a DNA test pegged him as a Husky mix and a lot of things made more sense. (He cannot read.)

Moving on.

The Acrobat

This is the role filled by Quin Shaobo’s Amazing Yen in Ocean’s Eleven, and it’s a crucial one—we need someone who can shimmy through ductwork, spring between display cases without touching the floor, and place the detonators we’re going to need to blast through the back wall of the museum.

I’d be tempted to go for a top athlete like a Border Collie or a Belgian Malinois here, but those dogs are simply too big.

We’re going with the Jack Russell Terrier.

“But Scott,” you say, “that’s Eddie from Frasier’s breed! Eddie from Frasier wouldn’t burglarize a museum!”

That’s ridiculous. Yes he would. Did you even watch Frasier? C’mon. Martin Crane retired from the police force to keep an eye on Eddie, an international criminal mastermind. That’s canon.

The Wild Card

I’m breaking a bit from the Ocean’s format here, as the final role in that crew is Carl Reiner’s elderly con man, a secondary subject matter expert. I’m not denying the value of that character to that particular story, but to round out our crew, we need to look instead to The A-Team formula. We need our Howlin’ Mad Murdoch—a wild card, an unpredictable character who’s going to surprise everyone and pull through when things go wrong and the heat starts closing in.

For that, I’m looking beyond the walls of Westminster and finding our most valuable piece on the streets: A Big Dumb Rescue Mutt.

Did he get past security? Yes.

Did he get the Honus Wagner card off the wall? He sure did.

Did he eat it? We’ll know for sure in the next 12 to 24 hours.

Is he a good dog? Of course he is.

(They’re all good dogs.)

(But the Corgi is already planning the next job.)

—Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)

The Action Cookbook Newsletter

Discussion about this post