For the inaugural Border Collies of the Rich and Famous, I’d like to start with perhaps the most infamous and disastrous (and thankfully former) Border Collie owner:
Ellen DeGeneres
There are many reasons to dislike Ellen DeGeneres, and most people do so for all of the wrong ones.
Mostly, she’s not funny, yet she has no trouble signing TV shows and comedy specials. So I guess I’m out voted on this one.
Many hate her for being a lesbian, but come on, she landed Portia de Rossi… one of the most beautiful people alive and a marked improvement over Anne Heche. Detractors of her lifestyle are welcome to not sleep with her and go back to policing their own lives instead of trying to burn sinners at large, lest the light of their own sins draw unwanted attention to their own personal failings. Witch hunts succeed wonderfully in outing sinners, except it’s not the witches who are evil, but the peasants carrying the torches.
I’ll note that the vehemence against celebrity lesbianism seems directly proportional to the target’s deviation from feminine norms. Everyone likes the fake lesbians in the soft core porn because they look like high school cheer leaders, they’ll even tolerate cute and bubbly lesbians like nice-Rosie. But the second Rosie O’Donnell goes butch and gets the attitude to match, out the door. Not that I blame them, I wish for the return of old Rosie too.
Ellen is also overexposed and has an annoying voice. My idea of hell would involve being locked in a room with her, Kelly Rippa, and Kathy Lee Gifford. The ensuing fight to see who could out talk the others would drive one insane and deaf in a matter of minutes.
But none of those non-issues match the real reason to dislike Ellen: she’s an idiot dog owner.
You are likely familiar with her recent dust up, the “Iggy saga” where Ellen and Portia adopted a Brussels Griffon Terrier while they were in the midst of moving, sent the dog off to a trainer for 9 days, got him back only to decide that they didn’t want a puppy that might annoy their cats, and then gave the dog to Ellen’s hairdresser only to have the rescue organization find out and take the dog back for violating the adoption agreement, breaking the heart of the hairdresser’s young daughter.
My take on the issue is that all six women involved–Ellen and Portia, the Hairdresser and her daughter, and the two women who run the rescue group–are all self involved manipulative idiots who are trying to all play the “poor little girl” card at the same time. Ellen and Portia are idiots for trying to adopt a puppy that they obviously didn’t have the time for, the Hairdesser and spawn looked simply foolish on the video demanding their dog back and trying unsuccessfully to shed a tear (they didn’t really have the dog that long), and the Mutts & Moms duo come off as vengeful nanny types for wanting to remove a dog from what is almost assuredly a perfectly good home where the dog was wanted.
Now, what makes this drama even more ridiculous is that this isn’t even the first, or second, or third time that Ellen’s desire to rescue a dog has ended with her dumping it only days after returning to the reality where she is entirely incapable of caring for a dog. And the only reason I care is that the last time this happened, the dog was a Border Collie.
Here we have Ellen cuddling a Border Collie puppy that she saw on TV in a shelter in Oakland, California. Her heart bled and she raced right over to adopt little “Oakland.”
What Ellen didn’t count on was that little Oakland, being a Border Collie, does not find Leer Jets nearly as fascinating as she does, and after little Oakland woke up and demanded that Ellen DO something with her, Ellen came to a realization (that we can see clearly on her face in the photo) along the lines of “What the $@%^ am I doing with a Border Collie?!”
Her lack of foresight in adopting a Border Collie is especially heinous because of her timing. She adopted the dog during a publicity trip to San Francisco to hype her brand new talk show. Any fool could have seen that a new Border Collie puppy and a new multi-million dollar TV venture should not be mixed.
DeGeneres’ love of animals is a frequent theme on the show. This week there was much talk of a large bird that has been threatening her koi pond. Next week, Bay Area fans can expect at least some mention of a dog she adopted during her recent Bay Area trip.
While visiting KNTV’s Battery Street studios on Sept. 5, she saw another newscast featuring an Oakland SPCA orphan. A few phone calls later, and the 12- week-old female border collie was rushed to the airport.
The dog has since been adopted (DeGeneres is calling her “Oakland”), and is now a Los Angeles resident. Oakland has gone on an incredible journey, and in some ways, that makes her a better guest than whoever is on the cover of Vanity Fair this week.
“People keep saying, ‘What are you going to do to make this (show) different?’ ” DeGeneres said. “I don’t know, and I hope I never do know. I hope I never figure out what people like about me or what they don’t like about me. It’s none of my business.”
Ellen DeGeneres is perhaps the most spectacular failure of a celebrity Border Collie owner, and she so inelegantly demonstrates why Border Collies are a poor choice for the shallow Hollywood social climbers.
Ellen ditched “Oakland” not long after she adopted her.
But thankfully, all of the Rich and Famous are not like Ellen.
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i like to watch the show of Ellen Degeneres. she is a very good talk show host and she is funny too.
I thought this was about border collie owners, not lambasting me for calling Ellen’s lesbianism what it is; a sin. I don’t seek to attack her for it and never have, but you decided to attack those of us with a belief that homosexuality is sinful. YOU are the one being intolerant, not us. We accept homosexuals just like we accept other sinners because we are all sinners, but we do not fail to see and identify their sin. It is an act of love, not hate. But you obviously don’t know what it means to love those that you don’t agree with.
Um, you’re mad at me for not disliking Ellen enough? And the reason you’re so concerned that you have to leave a comment is that she’s gay and I don’t hate her for it? What hole do people like you crawl out of and why do you have such an active hard-on for homosexuality? I seriously doubt you spend your time trolling the internet for any of the other thousands of “sins” you might find in whatever cobbled together tome of one-ply you wipe your mind with.
You’re a member of a very hateful cult that believes in very stupid things. Do you enjoy sitting in church staring at a mostly naked man who has been bound and beaten in what is clearly an S&M display, then having his flesh pressed against your tongue by another man and then swallowing his bodily fluids? Seems pretty homo and necro to me.
And don’t kid yourself, you’re not loving anyone. Love didn’t strap that young man from Laramie to a wooden fence after savagely beating him and leaving him to die any more than love nailed Jesus to a cross after he was beaten with the purpose of loving him to death. I guess the Romans figured Christianity was a sin and they loved the sinner while hating the sin, really well.
So get it straight, Tom, you didn’t come on my blog to tell me how much you LOVE Ellen.
If homosexuality is a sin, when did you choose to be straight?
retrieverman recently posted..The junk science behind the red wolf
Liked that one. I must admit I was worried for a few flash seconds searching for any ambiguity, though. There isn’t any of course (:
Your right to dislike homosexuality is your business and it is the right of everyone with opposing views to out you for your bigoted comments. Having said that, this is about a woman who has shown incredible compassion and caring for animals and her money and celebrity has allowed her to do far more for animals…even if it is finding loving homes for these dogs herself. You can hate but your reasoning for hating the animal sagas is buried deep behind your prejudice for who Ellen is as a lesbian. You’ve made it more about your belief concerning your personal views of “sinful” homosexuality with the ruse of concern for border collies (or any dog for that matter). Shame on you for convoluted response and thanks to Ellen and others who bring attention those who will remove a pet from a loving home instead of ensuring that every animal be given the opportunity for caring companions and a happy, well adjusted environment!
I don’t hold any animus toward homosexuals or homosexuality, I don’t think it’s a sin, and yet I think that Ellen is horribly capricious in the amount and nature of the animals she adopts and then dumps. It’s not particularly fair or good for the animals and she’s done it so many times it makes me very suspect that she has poor impulse control and doesn’t actually have the animal’s best interest in mind.
“And the only reason I care is that the last time this happened, the dog was a Border Collie.”
Really? You go off for 3 paragraphs about people not approving of Ellen’s lesbian lifestyle and then you state that you wouldn’t care about her being a bad owner if the dog had been another BREED? You seriously need to get your head straight.
Isn’t there a hate-sign at a funeral you should be holding?
You clearly have problems comprehending even simple concepts, which I imagine is one of the reasons you’ve turned over thinking to your cult leaders. Every single day, hateful trolls like you commit countless acts of violence and hatred against all sorts of other people and animals. No human can truly care about every single one of those things, and if that’s possible then “caring” isn’t really meaningful at all.
I chose to make an example of Ellen because the circumstances of her idiocy and actions overlapped several things I do care about and that made them worthy enough for me to spend my time to write a post. This is a natural happening in the public discourse: people will gravitate toward exemplar events because those events rise to the surface by meeting multiple criteria of interest. Other very similar stories get ignored.
Ellen is an example of how NOT to adopt a dog and how NOT to treat a Border Collie and what I say about her is applicable to plenty of other situations and people. This story will get read more and talked about more simply because it was a high profile event in part due to Ellen’s fame, which otherwise has little to do with the events.
This is just simple economy of attention. I’ve been writing about Double Merle issues for a long time but the post I did on the issue for a dog that won Best In Breed at a big dog show received hundreds of times the views of other posts simply because of the event.
Either you don’t understand this concept or you’re a troll trying to concoct some faux-rage over a really stupid reading of my words.
You are a vile man and I am sorry I even came across your sorry excuse for a website!!
She also did this with Pig, her Frenchie. Just vanished without any mention, one day. The woman’s a grade-A pet flake.
http://www.bullmarketfrogs.com/2008/09/ellen-degeneres-disappears-another-dog/
Degenerate (sic), Im not the only one too easy by far I’m sure. Anyway she sounds like she has some kind of compulsive obsessive disorder, or is bipolar…..something causing her to do things she shouldn’t then having to deal with the unintended results when she is stable, like getting rid of rescue dogs.
Its quite common but unfortunate when it comes to innocent animals, maybe she should up the lithium or try retail therapy she can well afford to.
I can’t imagine she does it simply for PR, though. It’s too obvious when she has to pass on the animal.
She could just get permanent employment at one of the shelters, they can keep tabs on her and she can get her fix. Think I read she is permanently involved with some shelter or other anyway.
Another possibility is that maybe this is just her ad hoc manner of re-rescuing? Lets see if I can find you a good home stylie I’ll be your best friend in the meantime, even if its just for five minutes?
Maybe a bit of everything, though she certainly comes across as manic.
I was a fan of Ellen de Generes for a very brief period back in the late eighties (I think it must have been) she wasn’t a bad stand up comedian and when she outed herself she became briefly even more interesting. Oddly enough this was not as easy in America as it is today for a celeb even as late as that.
Having said that look at the UK’s Simon Cowell and Cliff Richard (: he is the skeleton in his closet?
Most certainly “over exposure” has all but bumped off the golden goose. She is just a commercial noise, a not terribly interesting one. As a result I never even watched the Oscars, not saying much as I hardly watch movies anymore with all these fantastic TV series around but I sometimes did just to get a dose of celebrity ogling at a National Enquirer level.
On that one I’ve always found Portia de Rossi something of scam having been born Mandy Rogers growing up in Grovedale, Geelong Australia and all. Bad timing I guess as “Amanda Rogers” has a very swinging retro sound to it today, absolutely Hollywoods respectable.
Degenerate (sic), Im not the only one too easy by far I’m sure. Anyway she sounds like she has some kind of compulsive obsessive disorder, or is bipolar…..something causing her to do things she shouldn’t then having to deal with the unintended results when she is stable, like getting rid of rescue dogs.
Its quite common but unfortunate when it comes to innocent animals, maybe she should up the lithium or try retail therapy she can well afford to.
I can’t imagine she does it simply for PR, though. It’s too obvious when she has to pass on the animal.
She could just get permanent employment at one of the shelters, they can keep tabs on her and she can get her fix. Think I read she is permanently involved with some shelter or other anyway.
Another possibility is that maybe this is just her ad hoc manner of re-rescuing? Lets see if I can find you a good home stylie I’ll be your best friend in the meantime, even if its just for five minutes?
Maybe a bit of everything, though she certainly comes across as manic.
I was a fan of Ellen de Generes for a very brief period back in the late eighties (I think it must have been) she wasn’t a bad stand up comedian and when she outed herself she became briefly even more interesting. Oddly enough this was not as easy in America as it is today for a celeb even as late as that.
Having said that look at the UK’s Simon Cowell and Cliff Richard (: he is the skeleton in his closet?
Most certainly “over exposure” has all but bumped off the golden goose. She is just a commercial noise, a not terribly interesting one. As a result I never even watched the Oscars, not saying much as I hardly watch movies anymore with all these fantastic TV series around but I sometimes did just to get a dose of celebrity ogling at a National Enquirer level.
On that one I’ve always found Portia de Rossi something of scam having been born Mandy Rogers growing up in Grovedale, Geelong Australia and all.
Lost her mojo?
Bad timing I guess as “Amanda Rogers” has a very swinging retro sound to it today, absolutely Hollywoods respectable.
Not sure how that happend but it has a nicer ending second time around. Think I hit “previous page” to edit…..did a double take instead