Most people here know about the Ellen DeGeneres adoption fiasco .

I strongly believe in animal rescue. That is why both my dogs are rescue dogs. Although my cats were adopted from friends, my previous cats were strays who showed up on my doorstep. I could never in good conscious buy an animal when there are so many euthanized every day. And I volunteer my time at a cat rescue, too, so I see some of the other side of rescue, too.

I have no doubt that Ellen is an animal lover, although it was very irresponsible of her not to read the contract from the rescue in the first place. Returning an animal to the rescue, rather than finding it a home on your own, is standard. That’s because they don’t want to see animals handed off from home to home, as happened with Lola before we got her, for instance. She was in at least 6 different homes before we got her.

People get rid of animals for the stupidest reasons, sometimes. It’s extremely common for people to get rid of puppies and kittens when they become adolescents and aren’t so cute anymore. I’ve even heard of one person who got rid of her cat because the person got new furniture and the cat didn’t match the new furniture.

So it’s very easy to get jaded and cynical in the rescue world. It can break your heart.

On the other hand, rescues often have such high criteria that perfectly good homes are not considered. Some will not adopt dogs to people who live in apartments or don’t have a fenced in yard (we didn’t initially, and yes, one rescue I contacted wouldn’t even consider us because of that). Others won’t adopt to homes with young children. I’ve heard some other pretty weird reasons for denying adoption, too.

I think wrong falls on both sides here. Ellen was wrong not to take the responsibility of adopting an animal more seriously — it’s not usually very difficult to read the contract. The rescue may have been too quick to take back the dog — although since we’re not hearing their side, there may be more to it then we know. Still, I would have preferred for them to interview the family and see how the dog and the family interact before just taking away the dog, assuming, of course, that that wasn’t done.

The bottom line is that adopting an animal is a serious thing, and it should be given due consideration, and planned for. There are many wonderful dogs and cats being killed every single day. Please consider shelters and rescues before you spend lots of money to buy a dog.

Technorati Tags: rescue dogs, euthanized

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