Why Ellen DeGeneres is wrong
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- October
- 17
By now the video of Ellen DeGeneres sobbing on her daytime talk show has made the rounds in the media and on the Internet. If you haven’t seen it, click here to see the video on YouTube.com.
According to Ellen and published news reports on the story, Ellen and partner Portia DeRossi adopted a Brussels Griffon mix named Iggy from the rescue group Mutts and Moms, but found the dog wasn’t a good match for their home.
Mutts and Moms, like many good animal rescue organizations, required Ellen and Portia to sign a contract that required Iggy to be returned to Mutts and Moms if the couple couldn’t keep him. But Ellen and Portia didn’t abide by that contract and sent Iggy to live with Ellen’s hairstylist and family.
What happens? Mutts and Moms finds out and reclaims the dog. AS THEY HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO DO. Now she’s pleading with Mutts and Moms to give Iggy back to her hairstylist’s family making the rescue group out to be the baddies.
I really like Ellen as an entertainer. I think she’s got a lot going for her. But she is in the wrong here.
I not only volunteer for an animal rescue group, I adopted one of my dogs from one. And I signed a contract. And that contract said that if I could not keep her I was required to relinquish her to the rescue group.
Rescue groups do not have these contracts in place to be mean or to make life harder for adopters. They do it because their first interest is the animal. So many times a dog will be bounced from home to home before reaching a rescue group and that is no way for a dog to live.
These rescue groups take time to make sure a dog goes into a good home. The group I volunteer with, the Italian Greyhound Club of America, not only fosters dogs in members’ homes, the volunteers read through lengthy applications, call references and veterinarians and visit the potential adopters’ homes to make sure the dog will be safe there.
Ellen, in sobbing on her talk show, pleading for Iggy’s return to his family, is demeaning this process. It’s making rescue groups like Mutts and Moms look bad. And it’s not fair. She is the one who didn’t follow the rules. That family’s pain and her own is not the fault of Mutts and Moms.
The blame is hers and hers only.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 3:56 pm by Sarah Netter.
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Sarah Netter has covered Rockland County government and politics for The Journal News since August 2005. A Connecticut native, she previously covered several municipalities and state elections for her hometown paper. Sarah's passions include her two Italian greyhounds and cheesy disaster movies.
I just watched the video of Ellen,she admits she was wrong. It’s a pity she didnt abide by the contract when she realized Iggy wasnt a good fit for her household and considered giving the dog to her hairdresser and her family. I have adopted a dog in the past from a rescue group,my dog lived in the rescuer’s home for months before we adopted her. It was quite clear during the adoption process what I was do to if I couldnt keep the dog. If I remember correctly,that part of the contract was in bold plus it was verbally repeated.
It is wrong that anyone is heaping any abuse on Mutts and Mom even if I disagree with their statement that they do not adopt to any family with children under the age of 14.
Sorry folks but I agree with Ellen. I am sure she didn’t realize that the dog would not work out for them. She knew the dog was going to a good home. Lighten up. I would feel the same way even if it was not a celebrity to whom this happened.
This is another reason not to adopt a pet from these ultra left pet groups. When you buy a dog from a pet shop no one can come and break your kid’s heart.
Buy the dog or get if directly from a friend and leave these people out in the cold.
Tom when you buy a dog from a pet store, you are supporting puppy mills. No reputable breeder sells their dogs to pet stores no matter what the stores try to tell you. These dogs have little to no health care prior to coming into the store and often suffer from very serious defects and illnesses. They also cost hundreds of dollars more than what you would pay a breeder or a rescue group.
Trust me on this one—one of my dogs was originally from a pet store. She has a bleeding disorder and a congenital liver deformity. The family who purchased her from the store dumped her in the pound after a week and a rescue group picked her up from there.
I have also worked with pet rescue groups and there were better ways for Mutts and Moms to handle this. Blindly following rules at this point wasn’t good for anyone. Mutts and Moms came across as nutty and militant. Did they do what was best for the dog or did they see an opportunity to make a stand and say rich people can’t get away with everything?
Ellen dumped the dog on her hairdresser, I wonder if she also gives her old clothes that she doesn’t like any more?
Why did Mutts and Moms take Iggy back? The only reason offered was that Iggy’s new family had two girls under the age of 14 in the household. That may be a valid concern sometimes, but it didn’t seem to be a real issue in this particular case, so an objective observer would almost certainly conclude that Mutts and Moms did not have the dog’s best interests at heart.
Self-aggrandizing rhetoric aside, when the Sound and the Fury passes, Mutts and Moms will have set back the cause of animal rescue at least 20 years. What sort of idiot would choose to empower sanctimonious control freaks like these when they can get a dog for free outside of a grocery store?
From all accounts the home Ellen Degeneres gave the dog to was a good loving home where the dog received excellent care. Yes, the circumstances of the placement were in violation of the contract, but Mutts and Moms could have done the right thing and had a retroactive adoption. They came to the family’s door pretending to check up on the dog, then snatched it right from the little girl’s arms. That’s low. Real low. I hope anyone who contributes to Mutts and Moms stops doing so and spends their animal rescue money elsewhere.—- Proud rescuer of 3 dogs (one deaf) and 3 cats (yet another deaf one!) from a sane animal shelter.
To be frank, my outrage came from fear that someone could come and take my puppy that I adopted. Once Mutts and Moms saw what a good home Iggy had,that should have been enough. It’s not a human baby for God’s sake. I thought it was wonderful the puppy had kids. My Rowdy (a sheltie/papillion mix)loves my great nephews, 4 & 5yo. I understand the policy-
but that was over the top. Sorry, but rules are there to make things safe and orderly, not to empower control freaks. Pleasea rich person gave the dog to rich peoplewith childrenmost dogs love children, especially little ones that will run and play with them. Can Mutts really find a better home for Iggy? I think not. Some of the rescue groups are ridiculious in their demands. One wanted proof you got the dog training or it would take it awayleaves out people without a lot of moneythat’s not right. And like one blog said, go buy onewhich then you support puppy mills, or get a free one from a neighbor, which leaves the rescued puppy without a home-be fairSHE SIGNED A CONTRACT FOLKS! Rescue groups want you to sign a contract to insure the dog being adopted doesn’t wind up on the street 2-3 owners later. THEY ARE CONCERNED WITH THE DOG, NOT THE OWNER. They are correct in taking the dog back. Degeneres should have contacted the group first and ASKED if she could give over the dog to the hairdresser, who then, in turn, would fill out the proper paperwork. AGAIN, this is to insure that the hairdresser doesn’t change her mind for some reason down the road, and give it to her auto mechanic’s family, who then gives it to somebody else who may then ‘dump’ it on the street. Degeneres deals with CONTRACTS ALL THE TIME…she knows better; if someone violated a portion of her contract with the networks, you’d better believe she’d be in court, and on the tube, suing over the problem. Animals need all the protection they can get from what we so easily call “human beings”...you know the kind, like the basketball player who tortured, flamed and killed his dogs. WAKE UP PEOPLE.
I understand that the rescue groups are looking out for the best interest of the animal, however, some of these groups are quite invasive, requiring spot checks any time whild the animal is alive (that could be at any time for 12+ years!)they want to check on you and your pet (they could determine that they don’t like the way your house is an repo your dog without real reason).
doggielover says, “Rescue groups want you to sign a contract to insure the dog being adopted doesn’t wind up on the street 2-3 owners later.”
The facts in this case indicate otherwise. To wit, prior to placing Iggy with Ellen, the proprietors of Mutts and Moms did no due diligence, and they did NONE before taking Iggy from its new home. Rather, they entered a private home under false pretenses, seized Iggy, and refused to give him back. And why? Not to watch out for the best interests of the animal, but to prove that they wouldn’t be “bullied” by Ellen Degeneres. If and when a lawsuit gets filed, I predict that Mutts and Moms will find themselves in a world of legal hurt.
We don’t have all the details. For instance, we don’t know if Iggy has snapped/bit children before. We also don’t know if there are other things that disqualified the hairdresser’s family. For instance, we got our golden retriever from a rescue group that wanted to know if we had a fenced yard and if we had other dogs. We had a dominent border collie female, so the rescue group matched us with a submissive, young male golden. Worked out great. But did the Iggy home have the right characteristics for Iggy?
Has anyone considered that the agency might have valid and good reasons why this home would not be best for the dog, beyond the fact that the girls are under 14. Think about it, there may have been good reasons but the agency has chosen not to disclose this information so as not to let the whole world know that perhaps this family isn’t a good fit for the dog. The agency did go to the home and had opportunity to meet the hairdresser and her family and chose to remove the dog. Could it be that there were legitmate concerns about the family. By saying the concerns publically about this family is like doing the same damage to this family as what Ellen did in damaging the dog agency.
Sure Ellen made a mistake (as she admitted), but so did Mutts & Moms, in their pigheaded stance to stick by their “rules.” I work with a rescue group, and we have similar rules—if it doesn’t work out the dog must come back to us, and we do not adopt to families with very young children (4 and under), because puppies bite everything, and we had a puppy returned because “the puppy is biting my 2-year-old.” But not adopting to families with kids under 14 is simply ridiculous. I agree with the statement that this fiasco is setting back the work of other rescue groups that truly care about the best interest of the dogs.
Ellen lives and breaths contracts so there was no excuse for her breach of contract and come’on it’s not in small print. I adopted 2 little puppy mill Doxies from a rescue place last year and my contracts clearly state in BOLD print and in more than one place that if for whatever reason I am unable to keep them or don’t want them or whatever that I agree to return them to the rescue agency. When I picked my girls up they also verbally made that very clear and asked if I understood. I heard this afternoon that Mom and Mutts attorney was interviewed and said they made the offer to the hairdressers family to fill out an adoption application and they refused. I think there is alot more to this than we know. Ellen didn’t even have the dog for two weeks. Did she know these people would not pass to adopt a dog so she purposely did this to get them one? So thanks to Ellen now people will be supporting puppy mills even more because they will go buy them from stores and we know where those come from. When my girls came out of the mills after spending the first 6 years of their lives there making babies for puppy stores they both had mouths of rotten infected teeth, sores between their toes from wire cages and they were terrifed of people. It was awful. Someone has to watch out for the furbabies well being.
On one of the sites I belong to a lady posted this today.
Rescues have rules to prevent things like THIS from happening:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Frist_medical_school_experiments_controversy
Ellen should not have cried on her show. That was way too over-the-top and only made a bad situation worse. However, I think she was sincerely upset, and has right to feel that way. The agency over-stepped their bounds in snatching back the little pooch. I don’t see the pet as a commodity that can just be taken back to the seller. It’s not Target. They didn’t rent the dog. As a pet owner, I should have every right to to oversee the well-being of the animal. In this case, Ellen decided it needed a better home than she could provide, so she sought one out. In no news report does it state that the agency found that Ellen’s hairdresser was ill-suited to house a pet, other than citing the ages of the young kids, which is a bogus write-off.
Scot,
If you adopted a baby and decided it was not your cup of tea would you feel it was ok to just give it to a friend that you thought would take good care of it? Same difference.
It’s so simple. Ellen made a mistake. She failed to read the contract carefully. It seems clear that she had been unaware that she could not give the dog away. After all, she told Mutts & Moms straight out what she had done when they called.
So what would a reasonable person do? They would investigate the new home (perhaps asking for a donation to cover the second investigation) and if all was proper they would approve the placement. If they had to make a slight compromise about the under 14 thing, it would seem to be in the best interest of the dog if the home was a good one and the dog was happy there.
The way they handled it instead gives a black eye to animal adoption groups. Iggy gets uprooted from another home and family and in addition gets a new home that could have gone to another homeless dog.
If, of course the group found the home to be seriously deficient, then they had an obligation to retrieve the dog. But there doesn’t seem to be any claim of that.
The most glaring thing here is that the group doesn’t seem to have made an effort to find a compromise that would be in the best interest of the dog. It kind of seems like a “my way or the highway” thing. But keeping in mind the way media covers these things we should be aware that we probably do not know the whole story here and should be careful about passing judgment.
But on the people who make death threats I will pass judgment. That is disgraceful. Shame on them.
I am just so sick and tired of “stars” being able to get out of EVERYTHING that most of us ‘typical’ humans get strung up for. It’s gotten disgusting and I’m sick of it. All these so called ‘famous people’ can do anything they want; drive without valid state licenses, disregard signed contracts, even dog rescue contracts, hang their kids over railings (remember M. Jackson), and so much more. When is the public going to stand up and say “hey, if I have to obey laws and contacts, and the like, etc., so do you.! Enough is enough already. So Ellen cried on t.v., so what, she’s a performer; anyway, if she had so many tears, why the heck didn’t she give Iggy more than just 2 weeks to break into her househould. More important, why didn’t she tell Moms & Mutts that she already had a ‘dominant’ dog at home? They wouldn’t have given her the dog to begin with and none of us would have to be listening to this garbage—just more garbage from people who think all laws don’t apply to them because they are famous/rich and/or have expensive press people and/or lawyers to get them off and make them look good while doing it. Baloney!!! Iggy, you’re better off without all of them and I hope you are finally placed in a ‘normal, typical, loving home’ (if there are any more of them left, that is).
Sarah, as a journalist you should be trained to get all the facts before making a blanket statement. Adopting an animal from a petstore doesn’t carry the stigma it once did. Today a lot of pet stores require that the animals are spayed/neutured, dewormed, vaccinated and flea treated before the animal leaves the store. It is important to only buy from a pet store that follows these procedures and to remember that, while expensive, it will add up that quickly if you are a responsible pet owner and have these things done by your own vet. That said, it is still a wonderful thing to give a rescue pet a home, however not all rescue agencies are painted with the same brush either. This incident is an example of an antisocial militant control freak determined to prove a point regardless of the damage she is doing to a family, the cause of rescue agencies and a kindhearted celebrity’s reputation. As to labelling Ellen’s heartbroken explanation, well maybe you wouldn’t cry on national television but that doesn’t make it a “sobfest”. Her pain comes from knowing she messed up and she just wants to make it right. That rescue organization broke the law when it adopted out a pet that was unneutured and it defied a police officer who told that woman to hand the dog back to the family, this has been shown on video. Get your facts straight.
Leela I must respectfully disagree with you. First, one does not “adopt” an animal from a pet store. They buy them, unless the store is holding some kind of adoption drive (such as Petsmart’s drives for example.) Adoption fees are tyically between $50 and $300. A $,1750 price tag is not an adoption fee. Those pet stores are out there to make a profit.
I have volunteered with rescue for several years and have yet to hear about a pet store that spays or neuters its animals prior to those animals being sold. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but I’ve never heard of it. As for veterinary care, the stores are required to give their animals care. My own dog came with papers that she had been vaccinated by a veterinarian who cares for the pet store’s animals.
And buying a dog from a pet store absolutely still carries a stigma. There are thousands of activists working to expose puppy mills for how they treat their dogs. For every puppy that is bought from a pet store there is another one put in its place.
I’m on Ellen’s side. As one who has adopted numerous dogs, I feel that many of the rescue groups have gone from offering a good service to being absolute control freaks. My most recent adoption was a good example. The group had a “home visit report” that was 5 pages long and nothing short of an interrogation. The adoption contract contained all sorts of “musts,” such as how I “must” notify them of any move, “must” notify them before euthanizing the dog, etc. They even wanted the microchip contact information to stay in their name. What’s the point of owning a pet if the adoption agency retains control? Also, how is it that an adopter is entrusted with all of the life decisions and costs for the pet (medical care, food, etc.) and not the decision to place the pet in a better home if things are not going as planned? Some rescues seem to have have taken the stance that an adopter is guilty until proven innocent. The logic escapes me. A person who would be low enough to do a pet harm isn’t going to give a rats-you-know-what about contracts … and potential good owners are scared away. I know that I will never again adopt from a private rescue group. I will be going to the county shelters from now on.