George and Amal Clooney could easily afford a super expensive designer dog from a breeder, but that’s just not how this dog-loving couple rolls.
After falling in love with Mollie, a 4-year-old Basset Hound they saw on Petfinder three years ago, George and Amal drove over to the San Gabriel Valley Humane Society in Southern California and adopted her in person. They brought along one of their other rescue dogs, a Cocker Spaniel named Louie, to make sure he and Mollie got along.
Three months later, the Clooneys found out about Nate, a scruffy terrier having a hard time getting adopted from LuvFurMutts Animal Rescue in Fairfield, Ohio. Nate, who’d been rescued from a hoarding situation, had birth defects that were a turn-off for some potential adopters.
“When we took Nate to adoption events, people would stare and kids would point,” the rescue wrote on its website. “Several people applied to adopt him but then said no when they met him. … The lowest point came when an adopter cried when she met him and said she would be depressed the rest of her life if she had to look at him every day.”
But LuvFurMutts saw Nate as “a handsome, charming, sweet and normal little boy” — as did the Clooneys. A beloved terrier belonging to George’s parents had died the year before, so George thought Nate would make a perfect Christmas present for them.
“What is impressive is the fact that George picked Nate out, and Nick and Nina accepted Nate just the way he is,” wrote LuvFurMutts. “They could have any dog in the world, but they chose to adopt a dog who was crippled and could have been with LuvFurMutts for life.”
The Clooneys also made a donation to the rescue to cover the cost of Nate’s previous surgeries.
Help for 9 Rescued Cockers
Speaking of donations, fast forward about a year and a half. After hearing that Camp Cocker Rescue, a dog rescue organization based in Sherman Oaks, Calif., had just taken in nine Cocker Spaniels from a terrible backyard breeding operation, George and Amal, who are expecting a new family member of the human persuasion soon, donated $10,000 to the organization. Both of their babies of the canine persuasion — Louie and another dog, Einstein — were adopted from the rescue.
“You can imagine how blown away we were when we heard that a $10,000 donation was pledged to our doggies,” Camp Cocker wrote on its Facebook page. “After we all did happy dances and cried with happiness for this unbelievable matching donation offer — we then asked the donors … if we could reveal their names to our supporters in order to help us reach our big goal this month.”
As for those nine rescued Cockers, “So far, we are looking at two ear ablation surgeries, a bilateral mastectomy, a cherry eye surgery, nine dentals (all have never seen a vet in their lives and need extractions) plus the usual spay surgeries and lab work on all nine dogs to get a baseline of where they all are health wise,” according to the Camp Cocker Rescue website.
Camp Cocker Rescue is currently having a donation drive where contributions will be matched by the Clooneys’ generous donation.
“We have a philosophy where we want to be very inclusive of all of our supporters and it’s important to us that no matter how small of a donation, every person feels like their donation is meaningful and that we appreciate them,” Camp Cocker founder Cathy Stanley told PEOPLE.
Want to be as cool as the Clooneys? Click here to make a donation.
Photos via Camp Cocker Rescue Facebook page and LuvFurMutts Facebook page