Personally I think both sides were a little off, but I think it’s unfair to paint with such a broad brush about the idea of animals being disposable. From what I understand, her cats were very stressed out about the dog no matter what steps were taken to try to calm them. You’re oversimplifying it by implying that she made a quick decision because the dog was too much work. How about her responsibility to the cats who’ve been her pets before this? I don’t think it makes it a matter of animals being disposable, but a matter of making a decision in the best interest of the cats and the dog.
She should have checked with the agency before placing the dog elsewhere, but I can see how it happened. I’m sure she was venting her frustrations before taping her show and the hairdresser listening probably offered to help out. Seems pretty innocent. Having said that, I can see the rescue establishment’s point as well.
My experience (personally and family and friends) has left a bad taste in my mouth for rescue organizations. This one seems hellbent on proving a point to the “Ellen Degenereses of the world” because they can and they’re putting a bad mark on pet adoption. Nice job.
This is what I was thinking, too. I mean, I assume the point of the rules is to look out for the best interests of the dog. Was removing the dog necessarily the best thing? This dog has now had 3 homes in a relatively short period of time. If that was me, I think I’d be getting neurotic by this time. Would it have made more sense to at least try to get together with the family first, to determine whether or not it was a good situation? Could they have bent the rules on the age of the kids based on their actual behavior & demeanor around the dog, rather than enforcing that rule just because it’s a rule?
I’m not saying, necessarily, that Ellen did the right thing, I’m just saying that forcible removal of the dog isn’t the way I would try to remedy the situation, if I were the shelter.
Because she’s clearly acting from the puppy’s best interest and not from her own spite. :rolleyes:
Batkis, while admittedly not accustomed to being under media scrutiny, is coming across as a psycho control freak in this. According to Degeneres, Batkis was extremely hateful and belligerant when it was mentioned the dog had been replaced, and it was her (Batkis’s) threat to go to the media that prompted Ellen’s beating her to the punch by addressing it first (quite successfully); while Ellen may or may not be above spinning the truth (I’ve no way of knowing- she seems decent enough), based on her actions with the dog and the comment above I’ve no problem believing that Batkis is a first order bitchkis who bitchslapped a dragon and then whined about her burns. And while there’s no doubt as to who is legally in the right here, I think the “children under 14” clause is a bit mitigated by the fact that
1- the girls aren’t wily 3 and 4 year olds
2- they’re girls (not being sexist, but they tend to play gentler with animals than boys)
3- the name of the agency is Mutts and MOMS, implying that families are okay
What pisses me off most about Batkis is that by all accounts she never examined the home to see if it was fit. She didn’t talk to the girls or anything like, she went there to pick up the dog and called the cops when they didn’t hand it over (and why would the chip say it belonged to M&M when Ellen had paid for it and adopted it? Batkis must have goblin-blood.)
So my take is that Ellen overreacted to Batkis’s crueler overreaction, but ultimately Fuck Batkis.
I like the cut of your jib, there Kalhoun. It should be up to one of the parties of a contract to decide which stipulation is stupid and should be ignored. That’s a FANTASTIC idea! I’m gonna call up Bank of America and tell them that I don’t like that late fee stipulation of my mortgage. It’s stupid. It’s not like I’m not gonna pay 'em and as long as they get their money, what’s the harm?
And that contract I signed when I started working here? The one that says I’m only allowed 5 sick days every year? Stupid! How is anyone supposed to know how many days they’ll be sick in one year. I mean, if I try to stay healthy and can’t, well-- to bad! I will demand more sick days because I got sick in good faith.
And if either of them don’t like the new rules I’ve made to override the contract I signed, I’ll cry and cry on TV to get my millions of viewers to give the other signers of the contract as much hell as possible. Screw my word AND my honor since it obviously means nothing when I give it so long as I think our agreement is stupid.
What a remarkable statement. If I agreed to remodel your house, and we signed a contract, should I be allowed to decide whether the contract should be honored or not? Or is that privilege limited to you? Why sign if you don’t intend to honor it. Isn’t that lying?
Apparently, there was a problem with both homes. In the first home, the humans were big fat liars. Inn the second home, the children were too young. Don’t like it? Get a dog somewhere else. There are hundreds of thousands to choose from.
Please. The puppy is traumatized? I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that that puppy is happy as can be.
Not to be snarky, but dogs aren’t people. I’ve fostered many dogs, from short term to long term, and in most cases they are extremely adaptable.
People keep saying this, but no one knows that it is true. How do you know that they enforced it “just because it’s a rule?” Rescues are *in the business *of finding homes for dogs. That’s what they do. They don’t make rules just to have rules, they make rules based on their assessment of the breed and it’s particular needs. In this case, two rules were broken, as well as a contract being ignored. Ellen did not return the dog to rescue, and she placed it in a that would never have been considered as a potential home. If I were the rescue, there is no way I would respond to such an end-around in any other way.
No, it isn’t. A contract is not a law. It is an agreement between two supposedly honorable parties. If anyone at any time could decide not to honor a contract, contracts would be pointless.
That’s one way of reading it. Another is that Batkis is saying that since Ellen marshalled her millions of fans, who responded with threats and hate mail, and Ellen’s representative also threatened her, perhaps Ellen is not the best judge of what should happen to the dog.
As to having the puppy’s best interests at heart, I feel confident that it will end up in a very good home, if it hasn’t already.
Being flexible and adaptable doesn’t mean that any old living situation will work. Remember, one of the adoption agency’s goals is to find a suitable home–one that works for both the family and the dog. If dogs were infinitely adaptable, they wouldn’t need these rescue organizations to begin with.
I’m sure a lot of them are, but that doesn’t mean that it’s in the dog’s best interests to be taken out of the home. It may adjust to a new situation, but wouldn’t it be better to let it stay in a place that it is already adjusted to, unless there is a good reason to remove it?
Well, sure, and I don’t disagree with their mission. I just question whether they could have determined if the home was suitable before removing the dog.
Which apparently mean strict adherence to some ridiculous standards about how homes with 11 and 12 year old kids are automatically not suitable.
The adoption agency shoul have scolded Ellen, they should have investigated the home to see if it was suitable, and by sutiable I don’t mean decide automatically that it is unsuitable because of the kids. In an ideal world Ellen would have returned the dog to the shelter, so first case of bad judgement. Then in an ideal world after that the rescue group would have used a little more common sense to see if it was really necessariy to remove the dog. Bad judgement #2. It is a case of people iwth good intentions making wrong decisions.
Everybody did their absolute best to escalate this small problem into a national televised doggie hostage situation. But, since Ellen is the one with the national television exposure, I place the blame mostly with her.
What is reasonable about breaking the contract? Wouldn’t it have been reasonable for Ellen to have returned the puppy, with the recommendation that her hairdresser be considered as a possible adopter?
Rescues deal with all kinds of nut jobs. They have to have rules to protect themselves, the dogs, and the potential adopters. You really cannot know what it is like unless you have spent some time with a rescue group, but even when all the rules are followed serious problems can arise. It is much better to enforce the agreement (what some folks call being “inflexible”,) than it is to ignore the rules and face potential lawsuits, as well as complaints from applicants who did not get the same benefit. I cannot stress this enough. Rescue groups are manned by volunteers who spend many hours just in the nuts and bolts of caring for the dogs in rescue and finding good homes. These groups rely on donations for support; whatever fees charged hardly cover the outlay required to keep a dog in rescue. They do not have the time or resources deal with folks who cannot be bothered to abide by the agreements they signed.
It is pretty much boilerplate that an adoptive family agrees to spay or neuter the pet. Should that rule be ignored? New owners are usually required to provide proper nutrition and vet care, and to keep the dog inside and not tie it up outside. Which of those rules is it OK to break?
In the judgment of the women who run the rescue, there was a good reason to remove it. They do not adopt out to families with children under 14 years of age. You may disagree with that constraint. No matter. Their rescue, their rules. Unless you have spent as much time as they have studying the breed, I am not sure you are in a position to judge what is in the best interests of the dog. Or the family, for that matter. And, again, it is in the best interests of all the dogs that the rules be followed.
I don’t actually know if I disagree with their constraint regarding the childrens’ ages. I know that there are some breeds that, due to temperament or small size, are not a good fit with young children, and I’m sure that this shelter set that rule with all of this in mind. The thing is, I just don’t believe that age 14 is some magical cutoff age. You can’t tell me that there’s not a 12 year old in the world who could be trusted around the dog (or for that matter, that there’s not a 16-year-old in the world who couldn’t be trusted).
I’m also not saying that they didn’t have the RIGHT to remove the dog. I’m just not convinced that they removal was in the dog’s best interest, or if that was even considered by the shelter.
Here’s the difference - the laws you are subject to are basically outside your control. You live in a particular place, you get stuck with a bunch of laws to live with (apart from writing your reps, etc. etc.). But until you freely agree to it, there is no contract. Something stupid in the contract you don’t like? Cross it out and see if the other party agrees. Signing a contract that has parts in it you don’t intend to honor is dishonest and scurrilous.
I don’t see how you can have signed a contract for a pet and not realize there may be special conditions to its care and ownership. Maybe it’s me and my non-celebrity life, but anything that can be construed as a contract is a serious matter to me. So if I need to sign a freakin’ contract to get a pet when other pet owners can just go down to a shelter and pick an animal up, then how can it not occur to me that I’ve got myself something more complex than your average pet ownership, and, when I decide to give the pet away, that I should check your contract for any related clauses?
Anyway, this is how I tally it up:
Agency’s wrong:
Sending in the police to confiscate the dog
Ellen’s wrongs:
Signing a contract she either didn’t read or intend to honor
Pleading the agency to make an exception
Taking the issue public on her show and crying about it
Kudos to Ellen for her good intentions, but let’s not forget the agency also has good intentions. Ellen fucked up, IMO.
It isn’t. Unfortunately, it’s just not possible to evaluate each situation on a case-to-case basis. The rescue agencies simply can’t be expected to observe the children over the course of weeks and determine if they’d be suitable companions for the dogs.
Some of the posters here have lamented the rigidity of this rule. Frankly though, I don’t see an acceptable alternative. Should the rescue agency simply say, “Oh, these seem like safe kids, and I’m sure that they’d treat the dog well”? In order to minimize risk, there comes a point at which certain rules must be applied, even if it means ruling out some otherwise excellent candidates.