From what I’ve read, it was the hairdresser who called the police, complaining about unlawful confiscation. The police arrived, made a determination, and then sided with the rescue agency.
I could be wrong, but that’s what I read.
I’m sure you are right. But they really do have to draw the line, and in my estimation cannot afford to fudge it. Doing so would create more problems than it would solve.
Here are my three dogs.
A) Female Jack Russell who lived for 3 years on a horse farm where she had the run of 16 acres. She is now 8. Her owner was a breeder and was no longer going to use her for that. The second night she was at my house she jumped in the bed, burrowed under the covers, and has been happy as a pig in shit ever since.
B) Male Jack Russell who lived with a loving family and another dog for 7 years. One day, a 2 year old child, ignoring his warning growl, backed him into a corner and he nipped the kid. He was given up to rescue. He came here and was happy as a PIS for 6 years. He died last week (RIP Rexy boy) but for 6 years he ran and dug and chased tennis balls and barked away the thunder. No psychological problems to report.
C) Female Rottweiller (3) who was taken from an owner because he kept letting her run free. She then stayed in a kennel for six months (with her brother.) From there she went to a foster home for about two months. He flaked, gave her back, and I fostered here for about six months until I adopted her. She is the calmest, most docile, non-aggressive happy as a PIS dog you will ever see.
We can quibble about what “best” means, but by and large dogs respond to a firm, loving hand, play and exercise, good nutrition, and proper veterinary care. If the puppy in question is receiving same I have no worries about whether he is in the “best” possible situation.
There is only one solution. Fetch me my sword so that I may cut Iggy in half and give one half to each of them.
And then I’ll cut Ellen in half so she will shut the fuck up.
Finally, I will use my own sword to lobotomize myself so that I may forget ever having witnessed this crap.
Well, the difference there is that harm can be not only expected, but proved, in the case of your mortgage or other creditors. That’s why I said some contracts are stupid. As a matter of fact, our mortgage check was received late one month because they mailed the statements out late. I called them and they waived the late charge. The kennel’s contract assumes harm without ever assessing the true situations. Now, if Ellen had a reputation of going all Michael Vick on her pets, there might be cause for concern. But she obviously cared about the animal and simply eliminated the middle man by giving the dog to people she knows and trusts. Placing the dog with children who are slightly younger than the arbitrary age (and not with toddlers or young boys with slingshots) did no harm to the dog.
Well tell me…what if you DO get so sick that you’re going to miss six or seven days…are you obligated to quit your job? Will they fire you? No, they’ll probably withhold a day’s pay. If they uphold their end of the contract, it’s clear they don’t give a shit about you; they only care about the arbitrary rules that are designed to punish those who abuse the system.
How could you possibly keep your word if you actually did get sick for 8 days in one year? How about if you were so sick that you actually couldn’t come into the office and work, even though you felt like you might die? Would that make you a dishonorable person? Come on…
The point is that few things are black and white; most are varying shades of gray. Zero tolerance doesn’t allow for legitimate efforts to do the right thing. Ellen tried to do the right thing. I think the kennel had plenty of opportunity to see that this was one of those “no harm” situations but chose to go with the Zero Tolerance approach…which makes them look stupid.
Salon has a good piece about the debate. An excerpt:
And Ellen used her show as a sounding board in an attempt to get preferential treatment for herself, her hairdresser, and her hairdresser’s kids.
Anyone who refers to rescue organizations as “interlopers” has his head crammed so far up his ass that he will never see the light.
IIRC, Ellen had the audience vote as to whether she should even adopt the dog in the first place. “Applause-o-meter” is hardly the best way to decide such things.
Well, if you are going to go pull a dog out of a perfectly good home just because you can and somebody broke your precious rules, then “interloper” sems pretty appropriate.
I cannot believe that she used that as the decision-making process. Do you think maybe she used her decision to get a dog as a fun little part of her show?
Agreed. I’d say that would be mild.
Wow, that must’ve been unexpected for them. I only read the initial story, so the police element was new to me.
To me, it doesn’t matter that Ellen found the dog a good home-- it’s not like the agency wasn’t going to do the same thing. The point is that once she decided she was unable to keep the dog, all decisions on its care and ownership were no longer hers to make. In accordance with her contract, she should have returned the dog to the agency.
If you want to buy a fancy dog from a fancy agency, you’re bound by whatever fancy rules they stipulate in the fancy contract you sign. Don’t like it? Don’t sign. The agency is not an interloper for enforcing terms of a contract agreed to by all parties.
In a perfect world:
M&M: “Sorry to hear you can’t keep Iggy, Ellen. But you signed a contract with a “no right to transfer” clause, so you can’t just give your friends the dog.”
ED: “I did? There was? Gosh, fuck me, I’m sorry. I guess that means he’s yours again. Sorry for that.” <hands dog over>
M&M: “No problem. We’ll find him a good home.” <pats dog on head>
Please. You have no idea whether this was a “perfectly good home.” As I have explained above, rescue organizations have to be extremely careful about where they place their dogs. And they NEVER do it unless the adoptive home goes through the vetting process. NEVER. Your assertion that it was done “just because they can” is pulled out of your ass. It presupposes that they operate solely to indulge their whims, which is demonstrably absurd. And your comment about “precious rules” is prejudicial to the extreme. It was a legally binding contract. If you spent any time at all with the folks who do this sort of thing you would understand that the welfare of the dog is paramount. I urge you to get involved and see for yourself.
How does interloper even apply anyway? Without the rescue group the dog would never have gone to Ellen in the first place. Where are they interloping? They rescue dogs who are abandoned, who are uncared for, who are facing death.
Check out this website. Pay attention to the “Death Row Dogs.” Then tell me that the people who give up their time and money to save them are “interlopers.”
I already stated earlier that I consider the age stipulation in the contract as unreasonable.
I concede that Ellen’s actions were in breech of the (imho unreasonable) contract that she signed, and that she could have possibly avoided this whole situation by being aware of the fine print and quite possibly may have succeeded in this very same re-homing by working within the hoops of this particular organization (by returning Iggy to them), but it would have required a reasonable compromise on the age requirements by M&M.
I concede that bitching about the stipulations of a contract that you signed but did not read is not very effective, BUT such a situation can and should be catalyzed to promote public discourse and debate if there are potentially unreasonable stipulations in that contract that are common in other contracts.
Contra alluded to the dog probably being resilient and adaptable enough to endure being moved around a lot due to this issue, which was something that Kalhoun had presented as a negative aspect to this situation.
I do not see the sanctity of the contract or any over-reactions of any party involved as the root issue here. They are tangential issues. The root issue (that everyone involved is claiming to have foremost in mind) is the dog’s well-being. Boiling the whole fiasco down to that, I think it is reasonable that the dog’s well-being is conserved and promoted by being allowed to live with the hairdresser and her daughters.
Actually, we really don’t know how the dog was treated by the hairdresser and kids. It could’ve been shoved in a crate with food and water thrown at it.
Also, I found the following quote on the ABC website:
So basically it sounds like Degeneeres was getting rid of the dog for being a puppy.
I have 5 dogs and 4 cats (and two horses). All the dogs and cats are rescues, and everyone has to learn to adjust when a new animal joins the family. My cat Papi usually hides in the attic pouting for a week. She gets over it. Becoming a family doesn’t happen overnight, and I’m sure that throwing thousands of dollars at it wouldn’t make them acclimatize any quicker. And, when all is said and done, it wasn’t Ellen’s decision who got the dog. Yes, I’ll admit that the rescue acted hastily. But that doesn’t make Ellen’s actions any more right.
StG
The thing is, the agency can never know that they placed a dog in a “good” home. They could have passed up dozens of good homes because of the restriction.
I don’t know how long Ellen had the dog (if it was long enough to go through the spaying/neutering…or if it was even needed), but she’s certainly not doing harm by using her own judgement (which is at least as good as the kennel’s, who will never know an adoptive family as well as Ellen seems to know her hairdresser/friend). I understand a degree of filtering; but there are plenty of places that place animals successfully without the overkill stipulations that this place has.
Yeah, they do. Quite often, in my experience.
I’ve dealt with a number of pet rescues and most of them are great, but there are those that act with such a blinding sense of right and wrong about animal welfare that they can’t see past their own prejudices. It is true I don’t know if the hairdresser’s family was a good home for the dog, but Baktis has only claimed tha thhe problem with the family was that the girls were not 14 years old, so in my mind that is ego getting in the way. I am sure this woman has done wonderful things for animals all her life. I just think she is displaying poor judgement here.
I just find it odd that she wasn’t aware of this clause in the contract. My roommate and I adopted cats from two different shelters and both times they hammered us over the head with the fact that we weren’t allowed to give our pets away on our own if it ever became impossible for us to keep them.
Friend of mine bought one of those Sphynx cats from a breeder (allergies, dontcha know). One of the stipulations was that they had to get him fixed inside of three months. After a couple months of looking at his junk hanging out, they got used to it, and they didn’t want to get him neutered…the agency threatened to take the cat back because they broke the contract.
They went ahead and went through with the operation (and even looked into synthetic testicles, of all things), because they really didn’t have a choice. That’s just what happens when you deal with these lowlifes who, you know, have rules. It was frustrating, but there was never any sense of, “It’s a stupid rule, and even though I signed a contract, I’m not going to honor it.”
Like I said, I still don’t get that mindset, not at all. These aren’t little children or mentally deficient people who don’t know what they’re getting themselves into and the contract is legally invalid. I’m actually floored that someone who has lawyers vet contracts all the time would sign acontract and not pay attention to it.
There are few contracts in society that are absolutely hard-and-fast on every single point. Everything is negotiable. A reasonable person would understand the clause to mean, “Look…don’t dump the dog on the side of the highway or give it to the local dog fight operator. We will take it back if things don’t work out.” But she DID work it out…all on her own. She used more than reasonable care to make sure the dog was going to be with people who would love it and care for it properly.
I’d also like someone to chime in on how long Ellen is required to live by the kennel’s iron-clad contract — until the dog dies? Maybe just a year? Are they bound to take it back if the dog needs costly medical care and Ellen just doesn’t feel like dealing with it? Sort of like a Lemon Law?
This contract was not drawn up with humans or animals in mind. It was drawn up by someone who is just *convinced * she knows more and cares more and won’t give an inch to anyone’s personal style. It’s ridiculous. We all do things differently. She may have the legal authority, but she is not an authority on the subject.