People I love: Tricia Helfer

Last night I was bored and couldn't really find anything that interested me on the DVR, so I decided to see whether there was anything available on Comcast On Demand that might be of interest. After watching an episode of Party of Five--the one where Bailey goes to LA to find drug addicted Jill, Julia befriends a guy with HIV, no one has time for Claudia's birthday, and Charlie is whiny (yes, I realize Charlie was always whiny, but I loved him anyway)--I decided to see what was available under the heading "Pets." It appears there is a series where a photographer takes photos of celebrities with their pets. All of the celebrities profiled had dogs, except one: Tricia Helfer, better known as Six on Battlestar Galactica.

It turns out that Helfer has five cats. The first two were rescued as two-day old abandoned kittens, then she got another from a shelter, and then a fourth from a shelter to be friends with the third. But when she and her husband went to the shelter to get cat number four, they saw a 13 year old senior cat at the front of the store and decided to get her too, because she deserved to have her last years be happy.

What's more, Helfer rescued a cat in Baton Rouge and took it home with her, adopting it out to a friend. She donates all of the proceeds from items on her website to a cat rescue group and said that her dream in life is to have her own cat rescue. When asked why she liked cats so much she said that cats get a bad rap and are actually quite loving and affectionate.

I want to open a cat rescue! I think cats get a bad rap! I now love Tricia Helfer.

For the love of Iggy

I'm not really sure why I haven't posted about the whole Ellen Degeneres dog debacle before now, because I certainly have a lot of thoughts on the topic. I suspect everyone reading this knows the background, but as a quick primer for the uninitiated, Ellen and her girlfriend, Portia DiRossi, adopted a puppy from a LA-area rescue group, signing a contract that said if they couldn't keep the puppy, they would return him to the rescue group (this is pretty standard for a rescue group). When the group called her a few weeks after the adoption to ask how the dog was doing, she said the dog didn't get along with their cats, and she therefore rehomed it, giving it to her hairdresser, who has two children, ages 11 and 12. The rescue group heard this and went to the hairdresser's home, along with animal control, and took the dog back.

Ellen then went on her show to beg the group to give the dog back to the hairdresser, tearfully explaining that the children were now attached to Iggy. She also said that she "apparently" signed a contract saying she would return Iggy to the rescue if it didn't work out, but that the rescue "is not a home." The rescue has since stated that it won't give Iggy back to the hairdresser because they have a rule prohibiting families with children under 14 to adopt small dogs. Last night, an attorney for the group stated that the rescue actually told the family they would consider them if they applied for Iggy, but they refused to do so. The director of the rescue has received death threats. And everyone has an opinion on who was wrong.

Including me. What really bothers me about this situation is the disservice Ellen, who states she loves animals and was clearly trying to do the right thing by adopting from a rescue, rather than going to a breeder or, worse, a pet store, is doing to rescues throughout the country. Rescues already get a bad rap from a lot of people who don't understand why they have so many rules. I volunteer with a rescue group and we require an application, a quick phone interview, a vet reference (if you have had pets in the past; if you haven't, you need to state who you will use) and a home visit. We also require a contract that has a clause that states if you can't keep the pet for any reason, you return it to the rescue.

Is this overkill? No. It's actually all important. If someone isn't willing to fill out a short application with about 10 questions (name, address, phone number, animal you want, how long you are at home, whether you rent and can have pets, landlord reference, vet reference, current and previous pets and what happened to previous pets) then you really don't have the time to take care of an animal. The landlord reference is important to be sure the person can have pets. I don't want to adopt out an animal only to have it returned in six months because "the landlord won't let me keep it." The vet reference is important to make sure the animals currently and formerly in the person's care were treated well (it also sometimes reveals lies elsewhere in an application--a person will say Fido died of old age, when in fact Fido and his six siblings were all hit by cars because the owner leaves them loose in the front yard). Information on current animals is important to make sure the pet applied for is a good match, and information on previous animals is helpful because it can help reveal whether the owner has been responsible in the past. A home visit is done so a rescue representative can meet the applicant, see how their current animals are treated, and give them tips about potential hazards they notice in the home.

And then there is the clause that the animal be returned to the rescue. This is one of the most important aspects of the adoption process. Without this clause, a person can rehome the animal to anyone. What does this mean? All the careful checking the rescue group did for the first applicant is useless if that applicant just turns around and gives the dog to someone else. The group has no idea if the new owner has been charged with animal cruelty (we do check), whether they are allowed to own pets, whether they have euthanized their last three pets when they became "too difficult," or are a bad home for the pet for any number of reasons. If someone does decide they can't keep their pet and has a great new home for it, the solution is easy: tell the rescue group. Basically every rescue I know will then put the new adopters through their screening process and if all goes well, give them the pet.

So what disappoints me so much about Ellen isn't that she went on the show to beg for the dog to be returned. It's that she hasn't explained why these rules exist and are important, and hasn't given any other rescue group the opportunity to do so. Her appearances have only made rescues seem unreasonable and draconian.

That's not to say that I agree with the actions of the rescue group in this situation. It all depends on what happened. If the story their attorney shared is correct and the group offered to allow this family adopt if they filled out the application, and they refused, then the group has done nothing wrong. If that isn't the case and they simply refused because of the ages of the children, I think they could have been more flexible. Although I understand age guidelines for certain dogs and breeds, in this case, the children are pretty close in age to 14 and if they were mature enough to handle the dog responsibly, I think the rescue group could have had the family go through its typical adoption procedures and, if they "passed," allowed them to keep the dog. (I say all this without any real information about how Iggy was being treated and what the children are like, but I am assuming they are good kids who loved the dog and the dog was doing well.)

But even if this rescue group was too strict, not all of them are. Nor have I ever come across a rescue like the one Heather Havrilesky wrote about on salon.com. She claims that, as an adopter looking for a young dog, she was pointed to senior dogs or dogs who were ill and needed special medical attention. That makes no sense and I simply cannot imagine a rescue group that would do so. The rescue wants to place all of their animals in the best possible homes. So if someone wants a young dog, every rescue group I know will actually match them up with a young dog. Even if they presented a dog that was more special needs, they certainly wouldn't do so to the exclusion of others. I have to wonder whether Havrilesky only went to one rescue group, because it just does not sound realistic.

At the end of the day, I'm sad that this will discourage people from going through rescue groups or shelters (who usually have similar policies) to adopt their pets. Instead they will go to the nearby pet store, full of animals from unethical backyard breeders, because they don't ask any questions as long as you can pay their fee.

Animal Sanctuary cures hangovers

Well, it cured my hangover, at least. On Saturday morning (after a night of too much alcohol), a friend and I went to Poplar Springs Animal Sanctuary, a sanctuary for rescued farm animals, where they can live out their lives in peace and happiness. My friend and I have both sponsored animals at Poplar Springs: I sponsor two chickens named Tyler and Wendy (pictured at right: Wendy is the white chicken and Tyler is the spotten one), and my friend sponsors a pig named Peony.

The sanctuary was amazing, and I would highly recommend anyone interested in animals try to arrange a visit. They have chickens, turkeys, a peacock, pigs, mules, horses, goats, sheep and cows at the sanctuary, and they are all friendly, so you can even go up and pet them. In fact, I held two chickens (they just sat peacefully in my arms and let me stroke their feathers) and a goat befriended me, butting his head up to my hand to receive petting and following me around. There were a bunch of children visiting the sanctuary with their parents, and they were able to hand-feed the goats and sheep. A place like Poplar Springs is such a nice, cruelty-free alternative to evil petting zoos.

The proprietors know the names of every single animal at the sanctuary (they have over 70 chickens alone!) as well as their stories. If you sponsor an animal through them, they send you a biography of the animal as well as a framed photo. It's amazing to think that a place like this exists just an hour outside of DC. But it does! So donate and visit! It was a phenomenal experience and absolutely worth the trip.

Good night, sweet panda

Sad news from China today: Giant panda Xiang Xiang, the first and only captive-born panda to be released into the wild, died after only ten months out of captivity. Although Xiang Xiang spent three years in training for the wild, investigators think he fell out of a tree, possibly after being chased by other pandas. Officials at China's Wolong Giant Panda Research Center are guessing that male pandas were resistent to Xiang Xiang, who they saw as a threat, and are going to try again with a female panda.

This is sad news for pandas in general. It shows how difficult introducing captive pandas into the wild can be, and it depletes the already-scarce population of pandas (about 1600 in the world) by one.

Xiang Xiang was a definite cutie. Poor guy.

Wolfgang Puck: Champion of animals?

I am so impressed with Wolfgang Puck. Yesterday, he announced that he is taking on an initiative to make his restaurants (relatively) cruelty-free, serving only eggs that come from chickens that have lived cage-free, banning foie gras (which is so inhumane that it is illegal in the UK), serving veal that comes from calves allowed to roam, ensuring their lobsters were removed from their traps quickly (avoiding super-crowded holding tanks), and serving only sustainable seafood.

Is this perfect? Of course not. Lobsters will still be cut in half while alive. And veal, which comes from baby cows, is still being served. But it is a huge step. Very few restaurants make an effort to serve humanely-handled animal products, and I can't think of any with the name recognition of Puck's that have. When combining his fine-dining establishments, smaller airport-like restaurants and catering outfits, Puck owns well over a hundred restaurants. So this is a really big deal.

Perhaps more importantly, he is bringing some publicity to the issue of how inhumanely most of the animals that eventually are served to American diners (and bought at grocery stores) are treated. There are a lot of people who simply don't think about, or know about, how the food they are eating was handled prior to getting on their plates. So hopefully this will make more people aware of the atrocities of factory farms (where many animals--including pigs, which are more intelligent than three year old children--are in such small spaces they aren't given enough space to stand, eventually making their legs totally unusable; where chickens are in such tight quarters that there claws eventually grow into the soil, making them unable to move; and where terms like "cage free" are slapped onto a carton of eggs even if the chicken was only allowed a few minutes of being outside of a tiny cage a month). I really believe that more people would care about how the animals they ingest are treated, if they were simply made aware of the current reality.

And as a vegetarian, I am also happy that he is adding more vegetarian meals to his menus. I'm sure Puck, who is not adverse to self-promotion, will make sure he gets a lot of publicity for this. Which is great, because it brings publicity to an issue that doesn't often get much.

A panda by any other name...

There is absolutely nothing cuter than baby pandas. This year, China's Woolong Nature Reserve saw the birth of 18 panda babies (great news, considering there are only about 1600 pandas in the world). And they are now allowing us to name those pandas. If you go to this website, you not only can propose names for each of the 18 pandas, but you can see photos of all of them. If you click on the individual link for each panda (pandas 18 and 11 are shown above), you can see more photos of that particular panda--including, in most instances, photos of when they were just days old.

CBS gives away 15 seconds

Has anyone else heard that CBS is giving away 15 seconds of airtime to someone who posts a video on YouTube? The videos are posted in a group on YouTube, and then based on viewers' comments and clicks, the top five are put on the CBS website every two weeks (http://www.cbs.com/originals/15_seconds/index.php?v=6&p=1).

This is my favorite of the current crop. I mean, the cat is WEARING A SUIT!

Adopt a homeless pet

So pets are pop culture, right? Paris Hilton has a revolving door of them, Jennifer Aniston just got a puppy, and apparently Renee Zellweger tried to get a little girl to sell her dog for a few thousand dollars. So pets are totally pop culture.

How to be like a cool celebrity and get a pet of your own? Petfinder! This is the greatest site--it compiles available animal lists from most shelters and rescue organizations, and allows you to search for the perfect pet for you--you can search by species, breed, location, special needs, whether the animal is declawed, and even by name.

This is a phenomenal resource for shelters, as it allows them to reach a wider audience than they normally would, and potential pet owners can search until they find the perfect animal. Millions of animals are put to sleep in the U.S. every year because there aren't enough homes for them, so hopefully a site like this will help out.

I started using Petfinder a few months ago and searched until I found the perfect cat to join me and Gobo in our Fraggle family (we'll call her DoozerCat Fraggle from here on out). Petfinder really helped me make the right decision--I got to read a description of our cat before we picked her up, and then was able to contact her foster mother to get more information about her.

Our kitty has been a wonderful addition to the Fraggle family. And unlike Paris and Tinkerbell, we don't intend to "lose" her and replace her with a ferret in a few months.

Furballs and snowballs

I thought there was nothing cuter than a baby panda, but then I saw this video and realized that a bunch of baby pandas in a snowy playground takes the cake.

Pure Evil

Sure, I should have been clued in that Dean McDermott was pretty crappy when he left his wife, with whom he had just adopted a baby, for Tori Spelling. Tori herself couldn't be much better, as she reportedly dumped her first husband via her therapist. And then there was the fact that Tori mocked Dean's ex for not being able to bear any more children. Maybe not the best example of two sweet people you want to hang out with.

But this latest report is just too much for me. Apparently Dean is trying to make Tori get rid of her two senior cats. What is wrong with this guy?! Certainly their home is large enough to accomodate two old cats. I hope Tori realizes that she has some pretty bad karma coming back at her (I mean, not bothering to visit her father as he lay in the hospital for days before he died?) and spares the cats.