Mutts and Moms

I can’t believe I’m actually posting something about this stupid crap, but here I go…  posting something about this stupid crap.

But Mutts and Moms has suspended it’s website and e-mail because Ellen DeGeneres has publicly attacked a fine rescue organization for animals because Ellen DeGeneres failed to live up to her end of an adoption agreement and Mutts and Moms didn’t bow to her celebrity fiat.

 

So, here it goes.

 

Someone I don’t give a rip about—some stupid celebrity named Ellen—has gone and done something stupid and the “system” didn’t bow to her wishes as to how it should operate.

 

I don’t know Ms DeGeneres personally.  All I know is that she’s some kind of celebrity and some people give a crap about that—“Do you know who I am?”  My answer:  Yea, so?

 

But I digress.  I don’t know Ms. DeGeneres personally.  I do know normal people and pet adoption types.  I got my own dog from a rescue shelter—Bluebonnet Beagles, great folks—and know how seriously they take what they do.  I don’t see eye to eye with most rescue/adoption types because my pets are pets, not members of the family.  Yes, I love my dog, but the only thing separating my dog from food is that my dog can, theoretically, CATCH food.  I know that’s not a popular point of view, but think about it.  Why are cows not pets?  Because cows are food.  Why don’t we eat horses?  Because we ride horses.  But if there weren’t any cows and we were hungry…  (watch the Postman).  Europeans don’t have quite the same love affair with horses, and in Europe horses are… Yup.  You guessed it, food.  Why are rats (that are invited into the home) pets and not food?  We don’t eat rats because they’re filthy beasts.  But I betcha if that Kroger down the street suddenly ran out of food for some reason old Parker the Rat will start looking curiously like Chicken Broulet.  And that’s another one.  Chickens provide nothing to us except… THAT’S RIGHT, FOOD!  They are not transportation (unless you’re very, very tiny) and they cannot catch other food.  They have soft feathers, lay eggs, and taste good.  That’s all they’re good for.  Laying eggs and tasting good.  When they become predators that go out and catch rabbits and foxes, then maybe we won’t eat as many of them. 

 

Again, I digress. 

 

Luckily for dogs and cats and horses (and fat little poor babies, thank you Mr. Jonathan Swift) we have PLENTY of other options to eat.  UNFORTUNATELY for our dogs and cats and horses (and fat little poor babies, thanks again, Mr. Swift), that has led people to think that their pets are little human babies in strange animal skins.  That is where I cease to see eye to eye with some rescue/adoption types.  My dog is simply that—a dog.  Sit.  Stay.  Don’t pee on the carpet.  Good dog.  No, you cannot have a kidney transplant, sorry big fellah, but that’s not happening.  Get off the furniture, that’s for people and you are NOT PEOPLE.  Bad dog, don’t be people.  [Full disclosure:  we lost the “stay off the furniture” fight with our beagle.  Some fights are just not worth fighting.]

 

Needless to say, these rescue/adoption types do take their jobs seriously.  They think that animals need just the right homes; which is true because some animals have behavior problems that need to be worked out in just the right home.  My beagle was neglected and hyperactive because of that.  He needed a home with no kids to work out those neglect “issues” where kiddos wouldn’t get hurt by a hyperactive 35-40lb dog.  When we got him he wouldn’t even go outside on his own because he was worried he’d be left out there like he was with his former abusive owner.  We fixed that and now he’s a good inside/outside dog in a house with a little baby boy.

But some places think they need to be treated like equals in the family and coddled and blah blah.  Whatever.  You know what you’re getting into when you deal with these groups.  I told my people that I would take good care of my DOG and treat him with the respect a DOG deserves.  I also signed an agreement saying that if there was a problem with the dog and we could no longer care for him in the first 12 or 18 months, then I would give him back to the rescue folks and they would do what had to be done—either a new home or termination of the animal if it was just a psychopath.

 

THAT’S HOW SOME OF THESE PLACES OPERATE.  YOU WOULD KNOW THAT IF YOU WENT TO ADOPT THE ANIMAL PERSONALLY AND DIDN’T SEND A REPRESENTATIVE TO DO IT FOR YOU.

 

But there are some people in the world who believe that the world should operate however they think it should.  I don’t know if Ms. DeGeneres is one of these people, but these people certainly do the things that Ms. DeGeneres does.  They go public and cry about the GREAT INJUSTICE done because THEY DIDN’T GET TO DO WHATEVER THEY WANTED TO DO and that the PERPETRATORS of this GREAT INJUSTICE were simply trying to PUNISH THEM.  Sigh.

 

Sometimes I wish I could be so self centered to think that everything was about me.

 

But seriously, I don’t know Ellen well enough to dislike her.  I don’t find her to be particularly funny in the contexts that I have come across her, but I can’t say that reflects negatively upon her as a person.  Clearly SOMEBODY thinks she’s funny, because she keeps getting television shows.  But I do dislike the idea of dragging this crap out in a quite public, pre recorded, tearful scene that she had plenty of time to edit out of her broadcast if she had ANY second thoughts about what it might do to the organization she was attacking.  And yes, I say attacking because her little bawl-fest painted the organization as the bad guy who was taking a little dog away from a little girl.

 

Get over yourself, Ellen.  You were wrong.  Admit as much, apologize to the organization, write them a check for the trouble you caused them, endorse them as a reputable shelter, be remorseful over being such a whiney little turd about this, and REALLY move along.  Simply keeping your mouth shut—which you have demonstrated is NO included in your skill set—will not reverse the harm you’ve already done to this organization.  For you it’ll just be another day.  For them they’ve had to shut down operations because you defamed their reputation.

 

Or maybe this whole episode should be a lesson to other non-profits about working with Ellen if Ellen doesn’t get her way.