The situation between Ellen DeGeneres, Iggy The Dog, the Mutts & Moms dog adoption agency and the sobbing children of Ellen DeGeneres' hairdresser has got so bad that Iggy is now in the dog witness protection scheme.

After all that's happened to Iggy The Dog – getting his balls chopped off, going to live with Ellen DeGeneres, moving home again, getting removed from the new home, making Ellen DeGeneres cry on TV, causing all kinds of death threats – Mutts & Moms has found a new home for Iggy where he'll be free of all the unwanted publicity from recent days. It all comes at a cost, though – the identity of Iggy's new owner is being tightly guarded to put an end to any more trouble. But this means that everything can get back to normal again, at least until next week when Ellen DeGeneres starts crying on TV because an adoption agency won't let her dress a captive bear up as a butler and make it tapdance around her kitchen even though she paid for it to have its balls chopped off.

For a while last week it looked as if the saga over Ellen DeGeneres and her dog was going to tear the entire world apart. Battle lines were drawn up between those who saw Ellen DeGeneres sobbing on TV and decided that they'd rather murder some animal care workers than see their favourite daytime millionaire lesbian upset for a moment longer, and those who thought that Ellen DeGeneres had broken the terms of her contract by fobbing off her adopted dog to her hairdresser the moment she got bored of it and agreed that Iggy should have been taken back into care. This was the sort of thing that could destroy families, reduce communities to piles of smouldering rubble, and, um, allow Ellen DeGeneres to take a long weekend.

And now it's all over. The Mutts & Moms dog adoption agency has been so determined not to give Iggy back to Ellen DeGeneres or her hairdresser that it has already found Iggy a new home. But just to make sure that nobody finds Iggy, kidnaps it and takes it to Ellen DeGeneres under the blinding misapprehension that Ellen will want to be their friend for doing so, Iggy's new home has been kept secret. And that's undoubtedly a good thing according to the Mutts & Moms attorney, who doubles as the most sarcastic man in the world. The Associated Press reports:

Iggy was placed with a new family earlier this week, a spokesman for the agency's owners said Friday. "We're not revealing the family's identity to protect their privacy," attorney Keith A. Fink told The Associated Press. "The dog is fine."… Marina Batkis and Vanessa Chekroun, who own the nonprofit Mutts and Moms adoption agency, said DeGeneres violated her signed agreement, which called for Iggy to be returned if things didn't work out. After DeGeneres opened Tuesday's show with a tearful plea for the dog's return, Batkis said she and Chekroun were deluged with angry messages and phone calls, including death threats. "Ellen sitting in her yacht, sipping cognac, and these two women are devastated," Fink said.

And now the story has reached its end, it's time for each party in the saga to move on – Iggy can start working on his after dinner speaking career, where he can reel out stories like 'how I made that lesbian off the TV cry. No, not Rosie, the other one', Mutts & Moms can start finding homes for dogs again without fear of getting jumped by a gang of elderly Ellen enthusiasts and, as for Ellen DeGeneres, she'll soon learn that the world is full of animals that need her help. Not only are there many animals out there who would love a brand new home, but some of them also still have their balls attached. And, as we all know, Ellen won't rest until she's chopped off all the balls of all the animals in the world.

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DeGeneres Pooch gets New Home – Associated Press