Dr. V Attends the PETCO Gala Honoring Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres is a huge animal rescue supporter and co-owner of Halo pet food. As quoted by Dr. V, Ellen says, “I wish we lived in a world where caring for animals wasn’t so rare that it deserved an award.” Amen to that!
Dr. V wrote about the fun and excitement (and dessert – we pet people, we like our dessert, don’t we?) on her blog, PawCurious. Here’s a sampling of that post…with links to the blog itself.
“On Saturday, I attended the PETCO Foundation Gala here in San Diego thanks to BlogPaws. Now in its third year, the Gala introduced a new award this year: The Hope Award, given to a person whose dedication to the human-animal bond serves to give others hope. The very first recipient was no other than Ellen DeGeneres, comedienne, Halo co-founder, and dedicated animal advocate.”
Dr. V goes on to share her reluctance to follow Ellen into the ladies’ room, which I think all of us can agree with (what would you say to a celebrity in the ladies’ room?).
The post goes on to share some of Ellen’s ‘story’; “When Ellen got up to accept the Hope Award, she gave a short and heartfelt acceptance. First, she said when she was growing up she wanted to be Dian Fossey (like me!). Actually I still want to be Dian Fossey, minus the whole death-by-machete thing. Then she said, “then I realized that was stupid. Too many bug bites.” At which point I pulled my sleeves self-consciously down and realized Ellen was smarter than I was.”
And, to me, the best part of Dr. V’s post was this: “[Ellen] went on to say her second goal was to be a veterinarian, which if you know me, was never actually anything I aspired to be as a child. But when that fell short, she had to content herself with stand-up comedy (which seems to have worked out all right for her), and rescuing dogs from their frontyards or wherever she happens to find them.
“I thought about that as I looked around the room. Most of these people didn’t work with animals in the same capacity as I do. They were businesspeople, by and large. That being said, there was barely a dry eye in the house when Petco’s Paul Jolly talked about the life lessons he learned from his sheltie. Love of animals is universal and certainly not limited to those who work in the field.
“I really can’t get away from animal issues since that is pretty much my life right now- but for these people, who have other jobs and other things to think about every day- it speaks to their commitment that they made the choice to be there. People who could support any good cause in the whole world, choose to help animals. And that gives me hope.”
Hop over and read the whole post and share. This is a big part of what BlogPaws is about – helping our pet bloggers attend fabulous events, monetize their blogs, give back to the greater pet community, and more. We thank Dr. V for taking time to attend the event (wish we had a picture of her at the table — Dr. V, can you share one of those?) and for sharing the story of dancing with a dog in her formal attire. We thank PETCO and Ellen for raising funds on behalf of our pets – to “raise the quality of life”.
