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| Lily Allen and a (not the dog in the story) Maltipoo. Image credit for Allen at base of article. |
The news today on the celebrity circuit is that Lily Allen returned her rescue dog to the shelter from where she adopted her (which I believe was a Maltipoo) because he or she ate her passport and the passports of her children. The latest is that PETA has criticised her publicly for surrendering her dog to the shelter in an open letter. AND she said that she has received death threats on social media. It is pretty bad. She did wrong. There is no doubt about it but she does no deserve death threats. And she did adopt a rescue dog rather than buying a purebred. Anyway...
This caused her a huge amount of disruption and distress mainly because she was unable to take her children to see their dad in England for four or five months.
In response to suffering that disruption to her life she said the following: "And because the father of my children lives in England, I couldn't take them back to see their dad for, like, four months, five months, because this f***king dog had eaten the passports. And I just couldn't look at her. I was like: 'You've ruined my life.'"
As a consequence of telling the world that she felt that she had to return her rescue dog to the shelter from where she adopted her, she received criticism on social media. She told the world about it on the podcast Miss Me? which she hosts with the TV presenter Miquita Oliver.
"She couldn't be left alone for more than 10 mins, she had 3 long walks a day 2 by us and 1 with a local dog walker and several other dogs, we worked with the shelter that we rescued her from and they referred us to a behavioural specialist and a professional trainer, it was a volunteer from the shelter who would come and dog sit her when we were away, and after many months and much deliberation everyone was in agreement that our home wasn't the best fit for Mary."
Update: this is a picture of Mary. A black dog! It is from her Instagram page. I am not sure that this dog is a Maltipoo. She looks like a mongrel (mixed breed) to me.
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| Mary. Now returned to the shelter from where she was adopted. Image: Instagram. |
Liliana lives in New York with her husband, the actor, David Harbour and her two children, Ethel Mary, 13, and Marnie Rose, 11. She added: "We actually did adopt a dog already, but then it ate my passport and so I took her back to the home. She ate all three of our passports and they had our visas in. And I can't tell you how much money it cost me to get everything replaced, because it was in Covid and so it was just an absolute logistical nightmare."
She didn't say which specific pet she was talking about but my research indicates that she was a Maltipoo, which looks like a little, fluffy white terrier-type dog. These are small dogs and small dogs are popular.
The dog was named Mary and she adopted Mary in 2021 from Animal Haven, a New York-based animal sanctuary. Mary had her own Instagram account.
Allen added in her frustration about this incident that "Passports weren't the only thing she ate. She was a very badly behaved dog and I really tried very hard with her, but it just didn't work out and the passports were the last straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak."
She said that she was keen to get another dog which the family had decided to name Jude Bellingham after the English footballer.
As mentioned some criticised the singer on X. For example, one user wrote the following: "That's her fault, not the poor dog's. She is clearly an idiot of the highest order for not keeping important documents away from animals."
Another added: "There are no badly behaved dogs only badly behaved owners. A dog did not ruin your life, you ruined your own life by not being responsible for your belongings."
My comment: these comments are essentially correct. And it's down to her as well to ensure that her dog is trained. This was a double whammy of arguably irresponsibility from Lily Allen in both failing to ensure that her documents were kept in a safe place and arguably in failing to ensure that her dog was properly trained before adopting her or training the dog after the adoption (but see below).
I appears that the dog acted up due to separation anxiety. That points to the fact that she was not in a position to adopt the dog in the first place as she is away from home a lot it seems. I think that is the problem. She was not in a place to adopt a dog. It is said that dogs should not be left alone for more than 4 hours. Other people helped her keep Mary company but it did not work out.
I think that there is one good thing to say about Lily Allen regarding this incident: she had the courage to take the dog back to the shelter and admit her failings I presume at the shelter. She would have told the shelter that the dog was badly behaved but in doing so she was indirectly and by implication admitting that she had failed herself as well. I think that was quite courageous because some people don't have the courage to do that.
Lily Allen image credit: By Justin Higuchi from Los Angeles, CA, USA - Lily Allen 04/25/2018 #22, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79414080
Update: Lily Allen is angry at PETA. She claims that the organisation has 'added fuel to the fire'.
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