Ellen DeGeneres Dogfight Continues
October 18, 2007
The dog fight between Ellen DeGeneres and the Mutt & Moms pet adoption agency got rough today, with DeGeneres’s publicist and the shelter duking it out in Page6. Ellen’s publicist Kelly Bush was likely caught off guard by the agency’s sharp teeth in the matter.
However, the love and loyalty Ellen has cultivated through great publicity may have tipped the other way. Currently Mutts & Moms is receiving countless threats, hate mail, and web traffic from rabid fans. Their website is currently down, with a statement on PetFinder (reprinted in full after the jump in case it’s removed). PetFinder explains why the policy is needed.
This doesn’t cause much of an image problem for Ellen if she gets back on the air ASAP, though we can’t imagine why Bush would spend time and risk her nose pitbullying a pet agency.
Our colleagues over at FishbowlLA have more on how the media is handling the pet adoption rates.
PetFinder.com statement on Mutts & Moms:
Mutts and Mom has chosen to temporarily inactivate their website on Petfinder.com because their email inbox and voice mail are overwhelmed. Petfinder has 11,000 shelters and rescue groups posting over 260,000 pets that need homes. We do not dictate the adoption policies of our members. We do work with them to educate their volunteers and hope to professionalize the industry as a whole, providing a positive experience for adopters. Petfinder advocates for all parties: the pets, the adopters, and the shelter and rescue group workers and volunteers.
Pet Return Policies
Many shelters and rescue groups insist, through their adoption agreements, that if a pet cannot stay with his adoptive family, the adopters must return him to the group. Why do they do this?
Between 500,000 and 1 million pets adopted from shelters and rescue groups find themselves homeless and in the shelter once again.
One foster mom said it best, “I found the dog on the street, starving. I nursed her back to health. She slept in my bed. I sang her back to sleep when she had nightmares when she first came to me. Then I adopted her to a wonderful family. A year later, I got a call from animal control because she was at the shelter and she was going to be euthanized. The family had gotten divorced and she ended up on death row!”
This too-common experience leads rescue groups and shelter to put strict policies in place governing what happens if the adoption doesn’t work out. In effect, the rescue group and shelters are promising to always be there as a safety net for the pets. This can be very comforting to adopters.
PRNewser 
October 19, 2007 at 5:17 am
I highly disapprove of Mutts and Moms, Marina Batkis and Vanessa Chekroun’s actions. They acted on impulse with vengeance on the goodhearted-ness and best interest between a celebrity and deserving children; not with empathy or forethought. In researching the web, PETA, Humane Society, BBB, and SPCA historical information, these owners have not proven themselves respectful or caring. In fact they show spite, more than anything. Reviewing everything to date re. Marina. She still doesn’t show any emotion for the human bond between animal and a well deserving family. A reasonable human would not act on impulse driven by a bogus contract but allowed time for review and reasses the situation. A responsible business owner would have responded by now to the media, attorneys, and press with a RESOLUTION and not hiding and REACTING with negativity. When one appears as a villain one would naturally want to disarm the situation; not in this case. Nothing on the news has touched me in such a way that i would be actually reaching out and being an activist.
This is Marina’s quote: “Celebrities you know, they, they get preferential treatment. They have lots of money. They go into a restaurant they get a table.”
Look close at her glasses <>. I try not to be judgemental but something doesn’t seem right.