Oh, MAN! If there are two things I can’t stand, it’s seeing pets in peril and nice people cry.
Ellen DeGeneres is a nice people. She is. Nicer than most people I know … and I know a lot of nice ones. The lady wears her heart on her sleeve without making you want to barf, and her show is a bigger bucket of happy and dancing and presents and people having a good time and nice conversation than everything else on TV combined. Like Barney for grown-ups, but with better music.
Take two episodes of Ellen — except yesterday’s — and call me in the morning. Ten bucks says you’ll feel better.
Ellen is so nice that even when she picks on folks, from an awards-show podium or a stand-up stage, they seem perfectly delighted to have a laugh at their own expense if she’s the one who’s handing out the bill.
Except this time.
I’ll admit it — I sat here at my desk, red-eyed and sniffling as I watched the clip in which she discussed her lateral pass of newly-acquired dog Iggy to her just-like-family hairdresser after he didn’t bond with the feline members of the deDe Rossi-Generes household after a couple, two, three weeks or so. Ellen’s anguish was — and I am certain still is — real and palpable and utterly heartrending. But I couldn’t find much in the way of an actual apology in her confessional, even when the word “sorry” was spoken. And the thin thread of anger throughout? Dangerously misplaced, to my otherwise tenderhearted thinking.
Ellen did several things wrong … not just the one to which she ’fessed up. She and partner Portia de Rossi apparently thought enough of the nonprofit Mutts and Moms, and their goal to find good homes for good critters, to seek them out for their next pet. And then put pen to papers that they did not read (along with any of the ten million Brussels Griffon web sites that say the little fellers are social, hyper, willful, hard to housebreak and demanding — perfect for celebrities who are home a good 15 minutes out of their day. No wonder he was always in the cats’ business. Like him, they had nowhere else to be. PAR-TAY!)
In handing the animal over to another family — even a terrific, doting family — she broke rules designed to protect animals in need. Rules about which she ostensibly thought the world when she walked through the doors of Mutts and Moms. Rules that were clearly spelled out. And rules that left not just Ellen heartbroken, but some little girls, too.
Three things I can’t stand: pets in peril, nice people crying and heartbroken little girls. Okay, four: hypocrisy.
Best I can tell, the agency — or “those people” as Ellen called them after they stopped being her pet-loving pals — did nothing more than follow their own good policy for placing animals for which they were responsible, and expect their clients to do the same. Fact is, had the family to which Ellen gave the dog come to M&M of their own volition, they would have been steered to a breed more appropriate for homes with preteens. Rules. Rules designed to protect pets and families, and to prevent the creatures from being passed around — or worse — the way poor Iggy has been.
And for their good deed, and at Ellen’s hand, they’ve found themselves internationally vilified to the point of death threats — for hurting her feelings and those of her friends.
C’mon, El. You had a bad, bad day, no doubt. You are hurting and people you love are hurting and that can feel like the worse thing in the world. But the fact of the matter is, you owe Mutts and Moms an enormous apology even though, at this point, the enormous damage done has likely rendered it far too late to do any good.
They did not kidnap Iggy and grind him to sawdust — they simply sought to find him a good home. And are seeking that still. If they are still capable of functioning safely after your on-camera very bad day.