Ellen Sobs For The Return Of Confiscated Pet

Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres broke down while taping her show yesterday, in an episode that airs today, over a dog named Iggy that she rescued from a shelter in September. After she spent thousands to get Iggy neutered and to try and train him to get along with her cats, it wasn't working. Meanwhile, Ellen's hairdresser has two daughters and looking for a puppy. Ellen gave them Iggy, got daily reports of how the girls loved and had bonded to Iggy, and she thought she'd done a good thing by finding the dog a loving home.

But the rescue shelter claims Ellen violated a deal by giving the animal away, and they took Iggy from the kids. "I guess I signed a piece of paper that says if I can't keep Iggy, it goes back to the rescue organization, which is not someone's home, which is not a family," Ellen told the audience.

When the shelter called Ellen to check on Iggy, she was honest and told them she'd found the dog a new home. The shelter took Iggy from the hairdresser's home.

Here is Ellen sobbing on her show for the shelter to return the dog to the kids:

From NBC 10/16

Comments

[escapee]

Write them here [e-mail]
They fook down their email address in the contact section but not on their "help" section

[VOTER]

Thanks. I sent an email and hope many more will do the same.

[escapee]

Mutts and Moms, a volunteer nonprofit organization in Pasadena, is where Ellen got Iggy. You can view their site here: http://www.muttsandmoms.org/ I will bet they'll love hearing from all of us!!

[Graywolf48]

The link appears to be dead. As I would venture a guess, Mutts and Moms donations soon will be.

[rainey]

Do you guys get that this is a volunteer organization that just tries to rescue animals? And that they are just following a fiduciary responsibility? And that Ellen DeGeneris — an actress who can cry at will — is publicly extorting them?

Ask yourself why she didn't get on the phone with the organization or have one of her assistants get on the phone instead of going on the air and involving the immediate United States.

She's behaving like a tyrant and misusing the public airways. Adults solve problems like this all the time without using TV and making volunteer organizations into the bad guys. And anyone who abets her should be ashamed of themselves!

[cinemaven]

Sorry but my sis runs a rescue organization for a specific dog breed and she would never act in this way unless the home visit showed the new family to be totally unsuitable.

Two little girls have bonded with this dog. Unless their home is inappropriate (and there were no claims of that) they should have left the dog with it's family!

[Rockwell]

The clause is legitimate and allows the rescue organization to get the animal back from people who falsely adopt them and then turn the pet over to an abusive situation or for lab experiments and the like. Having said that, only petty little nazi's like the muttsandmoms would use the clause to kidnap the dog from a happy home life.

I've worked in a lot of not-for-profit, volunteer organizations and unfortunately they seem to attract as many small-minded fascist as they do caring volunteers.

People are trashing Ellen because of her celebrity status, but it's not hard to imagine that her celebrity status was what triggered muttsandmoms to get medieval on the mutt. I can already hear the control-freak director of the organization saying to the troops "how dare this uppity celebrity flaunt our rules". If Ellen has been Jane six-pack they probably wouldn't have cared.

[kbrown528]

According to people.com the organization is muttsandmoms.org

[juliette23]

Ellen shouldnt have wielded her power like that. I'm sure Ellen and the shelter could have negotiated a win-win situation without her crying to her fans. The shelter and Ellen have the same goal in mind.

[AurigaRa]

Agree she should have done that. Does anyone really think they wouldn't have worked something out with her? Maybe she doesn't have time to pursue, and this was the easy way.

The tears looked very real - she seems a good soul - but she IS a celebrity.

[starrianna]

Listen, those tears were REAL!!!

And I hear that someone stole those 21 pairs of $2000 shoes that Jessica Seinfeld gave Oprah today!!!

And Oprah is going on the air and CRYING HER EYES OUT even worse! It's so sad! She's BEGGING and PLEADING for the real stealers to return those precious SHOES! BOOOHOOOHOO! Poor, poor Oprah!

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

Can you imagine? What a bunch of asses!

Poor Ellen... I feel for her. She has such a good heart.

[escapee]

What kind of idiots run that shelter (would love to know the name of that place)? They missed a great fundraising opportunity! I'm sure Ellen would have made a huge donation to to kee that dog in the home Ellen found for it.

[Benny59]

As a soft-hearted dog lover myself, I could not help but share Ellen's tears as I watched this clip. I understand rules about adoption and I understand rules about spaying and neutering animals...­and I do not disagree. However, the goal is to match pets with families that love them. There has been way to much news about cruelty to dogs and other animals that anyone willing to provide a loving and caring home for a pet should be allowed to do so. Her grief is real. God bless you Ellen.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

The rescue shelter needs to get neutered.

[sanityrules]

This so-called "animal shelter" should lose their license over this debacle. I truly feel for the young girl and her family and especially for Ellen, who is one of the kindest people on earth.

Her actions were noble but the shelter decided in all their infinite wisdom that they had the power to rescind the "contract" with Ellen and confiscate the dog.

Why did they not just do a check on the young girl's family first and if they met the guidelines, drop it? If the family did not meet the guidelines, then, perhaps, they would have done the "right" thing in consficating the dog.

I hope Ellen's appeal on her TV show will bring this situation to the attention of the right Department and an investigation follows shortly.

[Meah]

Instead of the reasonable approach; to check out the environment to make sure it is appropriate, they will probably put the dog to death just to make a point. What has happened to people's common sense and humanity. If they took the dog away, then they must have gone over to the girl's house. Ever hear of rigidity? Control? Stupid stupid stupid.

[CynicalDog]

There's an awful lot of misinformation flying around here. The Mutts and Moms group is just a private rescue agency, and I'd imagine they operate out of someone's home, or use a number of foster homes. It's not some huge facility funded by the state (and unless there's some special rule in California, nonprofit groups don't have to be licensed, they just have to file paperwork with the state and federal governments). It's small groups like this one who save thousands of dogs from kill shelters each year, and their funding comes from private donations and from their own pockets. If you put them out of business, you're essentially putting all the dogs theý save every year back on death row. Every time a private group closes, it's one less facility available to ease the burden on public animal control centers.
On a related note, this is at least the second dog Ellen has adopted in the past three years and then given up because it didn't fit into her household. Maybe the biggest mistake that "Mutts and Moms" made was adopting to Ellen in the first place. She's not exactly stable.
Signed, a liberal Canadian lesbian