Give the Doggie Back!

Many of you, I am sure, have opinions about Ellen DeGeneres. Yeah, I know what some of you call her.... Ellen Degenerate, and all that. While I am not a big fan of hers, she does seem like a caring person, and her fans do adore her. Regardless of all of that, I am appalled about the actions that the pet rescue service Mutts and Moms have taken against Ellen and her hair stylist's family regarding that little dog which Ellen obtained from the pet service and then gave to the eleven and twelve-year old girls. http://television.aol.com/news/story/_a/agency-to-keep-ellen-degeneres-dog/20071016073409990001. The agency said the hair stylist's family was not "the type of family" to have the dog, that children under the age of 14 were not appropriate to own pets. How rediculous is that! The countless stories we could relate of our grands with numerous puppies and older dogs would warm the cockles of the most hardened hearts! They say that Ellen broke the contract; however, it would seem the point of the group would be that the animals would be placed in a happy home. We don't know the family, but presumedly, Ellen would not give the dog to inappropriate people.

The story does ring closer to home, however. Some years ago in Albuquerque, we had an acquaintance in the antique world who was a member of PETA. Now "Jordan" (name changed to protect the guilty) had probably close to a dozen pets in her home at any given time, and she always complained about the amount of money she was spending on dog food (duh! COULD SOMETHING BE DONE ABOUT THAT?). We had just lost our dear old cocker spaniel, so one day Jordan approached us about adopting a newly-acquired cocker spaniel that was the PERFECT pet: lovable, trained, house broken, etc. Finally, we caved and took the animal, signing the papers to provide it a decent home. Well, said perfect pet was anything but, as we very quickly discovered. One evening shortly after the pet was acquired, we were having a dinner party, and in a split-second as one guest lingered in the doorway too long while arriving, out the door ran Fido in a dash which Danika Patrick would have envied. At that point, all of our ten dinner guests began scouring the neighborhood, looking for the perfect dog. Finally, about an hour later, a helpful neighbor found Fido, and after all of the guests were rounded up, dinner began, not quite as good as originally had been planned. It turned out the perfect pet was a "runner." The next problem was significantly worse, however. The dog was NOT house broken. Our pale blue carpet began to look like a war zone with yellow and brown spots everywhere. Scrub as I might with every pet cleanup product known to man and animal, nothing would remove the spots. Finally, it became quite clear to Mrs. Tidy Bowl and Mr. Clean that said perfect pet had to go. It was Sunday when 1HW called PETA and told them they needed to take the dog back. Nope, they said, it was ours, and we just needed a cooling off period to think about it. Wrong, replied 1HW, they needed to take the dog TODAY. Nope, they replied, they could not do it. Those of you who know 1HW know that was not the appropriate answer, so off we went to the Humane Society, where we paid some $35 more to rid ourselves of that automatic pooping machine. Oh, boy! You'd have thought we were the ones who had condemned Lassie to the electric chair! The phone calls began on Monday, and we began to be threatened with all kinds of dire actions, including law suits for failure to carry out our contract, which would result in great sums for us to pay. They were really nasty! Finally, 1HW had enough, and he informed them that we would be happy to have them sue us, as we could then countersue them for fraudulant descriptions of the perfect pet and for all of the damages inflicted to our wall-to-wall carpeting. They finally backed down, but we still continued to get nasty, vendictive letters, and "Jordan" seldom spoke to us again. Oh, well!

In our opinion, such rescue groups as these are originated with good intent, but sometimes their intentions get carried away, and they end up doing far more harm than good. In the case of Ellen's Iggy, it would seem like providing a home for the pet is the primary consideration, not for the intent to be out to get Ellen. So I say, give Iggy back to the girls! What do you think?