I love Ellen DeGeneres: to me she can do no wrong. But it’s starting to look like Ellen has a bit of a history with quick dog turnovers. There’s a story in Page Six today that talks about another dog Ellen re-gifted a few years ago. Additionally, Howard Stern accused Ellen of giving away as many as nine dogs previously. A lot of articles are repeating this accusation, but I haven’t been able to find the transcripts, so I don’t know under what context Stern said this, and what his information is. The particular incident we do have some information about concerns a producer, Kerri Randles, who gave Ellen a mutt named Stormy a few years ago.

ELLEN DeGeneres’ latest doggy dealing wasn’t the first time she’d passed along a pup she’d adopted, says a Los Angeles producer who gave the talk-show queen a pooch she quickly got rid of. Kerri Randles says she gave DeGeneres a male mutt named Stormy two years ago, only to find out less than two months later that fickle Ellen had re-gifted him to a member of her staff. “She may have had it for much less time than that. I only say two months because that’s when I called to check on the dog and found out she no longer had it,” Randles said. “I was totally shocked. I thought she was out of her mind.”

DeGeneres may have passed along several other dogs over the years. Howard Stern said on his Sirius show that he’d heard she had done this nine times before. Viewers were shocked Tuesday when DeGeneres tearfully told her viewers that the Mutts & Moms agency had gone to her hairdresser’s house and confiscated the dog Ellen had adopted from the stylist. Mutts & Moms said she had signed a contract agreeing to return the dog only to the agency if she no longer wanted to care for it. Randles said DeGeneres seemed a perfect pet owner at first, but she quickly discovered the daytime TV hostess was “neurotic and crazy.”

When Randles took Stormy to NBC studios to meet DeGeneres, she was “drilled” for four hours by the star, her assistants and the crew. “Everyone on the show and in her entourage got themselves all involved,” Randles told Page Six’s Marianne Garvey. “They were all coming into the dressing room, playing with the dog as if it were a new extension of Ellen.” DeGeneres finally decided to keep the dog for a few nights to see if he’d fit into her home. She suggested that Randles take the dressing room next door to “tell the dog privately that she’d be going home with Ellen. I told her I’d already had a talk with the dog. She didn’t get my jokes,” said Randles. When she called to check on the pup a few days later, DeGeneres told her she’d decided to keep it. “She acted like she was keeping it for life,” Randles recalled.

[From the New York Post]

I’m probably not the most un-biased person to write this story; I freaking love Ellen. This is obviously only one side of the story. I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to give someone a pet as a present. That’s really something a person needs to make their own decision about. I would guess that someone like Ellen, who’s known for being an intense animal lover, would probably be given animals more than an average person. In terms of the “nine other dogs” she’s supposedly given away over the years, it is possible that people gave her animals as a present, which I’m sure was well-meaning but maybe not practical. Most people can only have so many pets. It would be one thing if Ellen were constantly adopting and discarding dogs on her own account. The story above sounds very weird, and I’m not totally inclined to believe the accuracy of Kerri Randles’s account. But as I said, I’m kind of biased. First off, it sounds like Randles’ gave the dog away in the first place. It doesn’t seem like she adopted the dog specifically for Ellen. So if Ellen did the same thing, who is she to call her out on it?

As someone who worked in a vet clinic and has owned many animals over the years, I can say that certain pets don’t always work out, and sometimes you have to find a new home for them. I’ve seen a lot of cases of a new pet being too aggressive towards an old pet, and have had owners spend hundreds of dollars on behaviorists to no avail. Then a new home is found, and for some reason it’s a better mix and the animal is fine. Sometimes the reasons have to do more with other pets than with the humans. There’s clearly a lot more to this story than just what’s written here. I can’t emphasize enough that I hope this doesn’t turn people off from adopting shelter pets. It’s a wonderful way to save a life and bring some happiness into your home.

Picture note by Jaybird: That’s not really a picture of the dog in question.