Celebrity pets: Mistreated or made in the shade?

Reed Saxon / AP

By Los Angeles Times Staff Writers Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres pledged allegiance to her cats and lost her dog Iggy on a technicality, or so she told her TV audience on Oct. 15. DeGeneres said she gave the dog to her hairdresser after it didnt mix well with her cats, a no-no in the eyes of the rescue agency from which DeGeneres got the pup. "I guess I signed a piece of paper that says if I can't keep Iggy, it goes back to the rescue organization, which is not someone's home, which is not a family," she said in a show transcript provided to the Associated Press. DeGeneres is pleading for the dog to be returned to her hairdresser, who she writes in an Oct. 16 Internet post has two young girls already in love with Iggy. Will DeGeneres mistake be forgiven? Will Iggy be sent back to the hairdresser's home, where it lived for two weeks? Or will this celebrity pet be forced to find new owners? As we wait for the story to unfold, we look back on some notable celeb-pet relationships.

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Stephen Chernin / AP

Paris Hilton The socialite owns a Yorkshire terrier and a Chihuahua named Tinkerbell, prominently seen in every season of her reality show, "The Simple Life." Tinkerbell was reported missing in 2004 after Hilton's apartment was robbed, but she was found days later. A 2005 online poll by the New York Dog Magazine and the Hollywood Dog Magazine named Hilton worst celebrity dog owner. But living as Paris' pooch can't be all bad. Tinkerbell "wrote" a memoir, "The Tinkerbell Hilton Diaries."

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