For film and television actor Rachelle Lefevre, the experience of adopting her dog Honey was what made animal rescue such a profoundly personal endeavor, an endeavor she has committed to as a new spokeswoman for Best Friends’ Puppies Aren’t Products campaign, which encourages people to adopt rather than purchase dogs from puppy mill-supplied pet stores.
The image of her Maltese poodle mix stands in her mind, she says, as the constant reminder for why people should always adopt, and never buy from a pet store.
“The thought keeps plaguing me — that if we hadn’t adopted Honey, she might have been euthanized,” she explains.
Lefevre is best known for her role as Victoria in the 2008 blockbuster “Twilight,” a role she reprises in the soon-to-released sequel “New Moon.” Lefevre also plays opposite Kevin Spacey in 2010’s “Casino Jack” and opposite Paul Giamatti in “Barney’s Version,” also due out next year.
Lefevre has taken to her position as Best Friends spokeswoman with fervor, describing the position as a “perfect match” for what she knows and believes in.
“Without even thinking about it, I’ve become the person who always says to anyone even thinking of getting a dog, ‘you better not buy,’” she says, laughing.
Road to rescue
One of Lefevre’s first experiences with rescuing animals occurred when she was growing up in Montreal, Quebec. A psychologist, her mother had a patient who one day showed up to his appointment holding a white Lhaso apso. The patient had found the dog running loose, knowing the dog belonged to a home of drug addicts who had severely neglected the dog. The patient wanted a better life for the dog, hoping that Lefevre’s mother would take him. Before she would accept the dog, she called her daughter to ask if she wanted him, and she said yes. The family named her Charlie.
“She was an absolute mess when we got her,” Lefevre remembers. “But she was the sweetest dog, and became the family pet.”
With that experience in her background, Lefevre presented a fertile mind for learning about animal rescue when she met Loverboy, a rottweiler her manager Pearl Hanan had adopted.
Someone had dumped Loverboy in Hanan’s backyard. Hanan took him in to live with her and her chocolate Labrador, Riley. Before meeting Loverboy, Lefevre was under the common misconception that a rescued dog the size and breed of Loverboy would be less-than-friendly. Lefevre instead found him irresistible, and the two forged a bond that marked a turning point in her thinking and her approach to animal rescue. All breeds, even those with stigmatized reputations, could be “the sweetest, most caring, gentle dogs,” as she describes Loverboy and Riley.
Following her manager’s lead
A member since 1993, Hanan gives each one of her clients a membership to Best Friends every year as a Christmas gift (“It’s my favorite group… ever,” Hanan says).
For about as long as she’s been a member, Hanan has also been rescuing pit bulls. She wound up adopting one of them, a puppy named Sugar, after Loverboy and Riley passed. Hanan found her abandoned in the yard of a vacant house.
Sugar had no social skills when Hanan brought her home, and Lefevre witnessed as Hanan worked with the pit bull and helped her finally learn those skills.
“I think Rachelle got an education in how to rescue dogs then,” Hanan says.
“Pearl had rescued Sugar and turned her into the most loveable dog,” Lefevre says. “And she told me that Best Friends does the same thing, but on a much more massive scale. …That whole experience made me want to get involved.”
She and her boyfriend Jamie Thomas King would later adopt Honey, who had been in an East Los Angeles shelter. And, Lefevre would also become a passionate supporter of Best Friends, primarily from reading the animal profiles in our magazine. From the profiles, she’s gathered and embraced the Best Friends approach towards animal welfare.
“[The profiles] give you the feeling that Best Friends treats every animal as an individual — that you don’t rescue animals; you rescue individuals. They all have their individual stories, and they all need something different, and you take the time to figure out what they need.”
As a spokeswoman for the Puppies Aren’t Products campaign, Lefevre appears in a 30-second and 60-second public service announcement. The PSA package will be sent out to 1,400 television and cable stations later this month, just in time for the holiday season, a crucial time of year for dogs. The PSA sends a message to holiday shoppers who are thinking of getting puppies as Christmas presents to “adopt, don’t shop.”
“We are thrilled to have Rachelle on board helping us educate the public about puppy mills,” says Kelli Ohrtman, Puppies Aren’t Products campaign specialist. “There are still so many people who aren’t aware of where the cute puppies in the pet stores are coming from, and Rachelle, with her legion of fans, can help us reach those people and weaken the demand for dogs born in puppy mills.”
“In my experience with Honey and other rescued dogs, they are just the best dogs,” Lefevre says, explaining the incentives for adopting rather than buying from a pet store. “I want to rid people of the misconception that you’ll only get a bad dog from a shelter.”
“I’m not trying to reprimand people for buying dogs at a pet store,” she adds. “I just want them to have the incredible experience of rescuing animals. I’m not going to lie — there are selfish reasons for adopting, because it gives you the best feeling. It makes you feel like a superhero.”
To learn more about our Puppies Aren’t Products campaign, click here.
To see the 30-second version of the Puppies Aren’t Products PSA featuring Lefevre, click here.
To read more about the PSA see our press release, click here.
Photo by Andy Sheng