A few years ago Ellen DeGeneres adopted a puppy, then gave it away. That was a breach of contract which brought out the puppy police. They took the dog from the new owners.

On national television, a newly contrite Ellen G. confessed her contractual sin with a tearful, remorseful apology and plea. Give the dog back to the kids who want and need and bonded to said dog. Puhleeeze.

Boo hoo. In some locales, dogs get mixed in with stir fry so why all the stir crazy emotion over an orphaned but free pet that’s eventually going to become sad and lonely and hungry and die anyway?

Ellen wanted a dog, found a dog, figured out that dogs, like children and life partners, require substantial time and effort to maintain. She relented to her need for convenience and gave the dog away to a family with children who wanted a dog. The only problem with that sad story is the sadder story when the puppy police came to take the dog away from the children because Ellen breached her contract.

Sanguineless, Ellen pleaded for the dog to be returned, not to the rightful owner who failed to live up to her legal responsibility to care for the dog according to the terms of a signed contract, but to the children to whom she gave away the dog.

Using the power of her media empire, Ellen took to the airwaves to confess her sin and incite the legions of puppy lovers everywhere to rage against the kind and charitable people who pluck homeless dogs from the depths of street despair and find them homes among true puppy lovers who not only care for the creatures but follow the rules for taking on said sad creatures.

Or, did Ellen merely identify a weakness in the control freakish puppy-loving people-hating bureaucracy? Yes, a thousand times yes. These puppy police love the rule of law more than puppies or humans and don’t mind who they expose as lawbreakers or contract breakers.

Ellen was wrong to take on the responsibilities of puppyhood in the first place. In the second place, she conveniently disposed of said puppy, hiding behind a newfound guise of altruism and sacrifice.

Besides avoiding puppy police, what is to be learned from The Adventures of Fido and Ellen?

Perhaps some may consider it acceptable for young women to become pregnant, give birth, and then, after realizing that parenthood, like puppyhood, requires time and effort and consideration and care and sacrifice– none of which Ellen was willing to provide, despite signing a contract stating that she would– simply decide to give away the child.

Is giving away a puppy for the sake of convenience any less cruel than a culture which merely woks the dog?