Jennifer Aniston has always been a great dog momma and rescue advocate. Her first pup was Norman, whom she famously rescued after he had a bit part on Friends (the boy couldn’t act, but he could love!). Norman has sadly left us, as did Jen’s dog Dolly. But she still has in her pack Lord Chesterfield and Clyde. In 2021 Jen turned Clyde’s illustrated alter-ego Clydeo into a children’s book, and this month she just released a fourth in the series: Clydeo Takes a Bite Out of Life. She also just launched The Clydeo Fund, which aims to help out shelters that take care of our pups on their way to finding forever homes. Jen spoke with People Mag to tout both projects, and she talked about how she keeps posting dogs on her Instagram so they can be rescued, even if it’s tough to constantly be faced with their hopeful, longing mugs.
Jennifer Aniston had made it her mission to help rescue as many animals as possible.
Along with her new children’s book, Clydeo Takes a Bite Out of Life, and The Clydeo Fund, which supports animal shelters, the actress, producer, and entrepreneur, 55, also uses her Instagram account to share stories of rescue dogs in need.
“It’s so hard, but it helps; they get seen and rescued,” she tells PEOPLE. “It’s almost impossible to keep up with it. But I’m constantly updated that so-and-so got rescued. So all I keep thinking is if one gets out, that’s all I care about.”
The Morning Show star and executive producer wrote her new picture book, illustrated by Bruno Jacob and inspired by one of her rescue dogs, Clyde, to help motivate kids to explore their interests. “They’re so focused on these phones and just disappear into this void of scrolling,” she says. “They don’t really spend time being stimulated by the world and figuring out what they want to do.”
First introduced as an animated dog on Aniston’s Instagram account in 2021, Clydeo now has a four-book children’s series. “When they came to me with the idea, it was like, ‘Obviously, I’ll make it about something that I fully love and adore, which is my rescue animals,’” she says.
The actress also wanted to “create a fund where we can donate to these animals all over the world and inspire people to just throw in a dollar. It all adds up,” she says. “We can get awareness out and help the shelters that are in desperate need.”
With every dollar donated, The Clydeo Fund will help organizations rescue, rehabilitate, and find forever homes for animals. “We can help these animals, and we can get awareness out, and help the shelters that are in desperate need of upkeep because they’re falling apart,” explains the former Friends star. “They can’t keep up. And all you see is that we’re euthanizing innocent, beautiful, perfectly, perfectly fine two-year-old dogs, or a puppy, or a litter. I can’t. It’s too much. It’s too many.”
Oh, I feel you Jen! Seeing all those faces, you just want to scoop up and rescue all the floofs! Like Molly Shannon in Year of the Dog. While I usually side eye when yet another celebrity comes out with a children’s book, I have no problem making an exception here. I love that Jen is helping out the shelters — they deserve all the funding and support we can give them! I just went through all this with My Guy, and the shelter that picked him up took such great care of him. He was three-years-old when he came to them and sick, un-chipped, and not neutered. After making sure he recovered from his illness, they got him microchipped, neutered, and up-to-date on all his vaccines. Maybe that’s pretty standard now, but it wasn’t when I rescued My Girl over a decade ago, so I greatly appreciated it! Here’s to Jen in her very best Doris Day Dog Advocate Era!
photos via Instagram and credit: Nicky Nelson / Wenn / Avalon, IMAGO/Faye Sadou / Avalon
I think the microchipping and neutering etc is pretty standard now with rescues, which is why they can be so expensive to run. And with many even if you don’t rescue from there, they’ll perform a low cost spaying or neutering for your animal since they want to reduce the risk of more dogs/cats being born without a home.
I mentioned this yesterday on the James Middleton post about wanting to run a rescue but they are so expensive and so hard to operate – you need vets on staff (or at least on call), you need relationships with emergency vets, you need a pretty much constant stream of funding, you need volunteers, you need fosters, etc. Some have less overhead than others if you don’t have an actual center but its still a ton of volunteer time.
So I think its great that Jen is using her platform to draw attention to these dogs. So many people don’t look to shelters or rescues because they assume they’re all a certain breed, they’re all owner surrenders and there are problems with them, they’re all old, etc. But you can really get any type of dog through a shelter or rescue. I have a friend who works at our city shelter and she always says to just let her know what you are looking for because so many dogs come in and dont make it to the website.
It’s like Beth Stern and all the work she does fostering cats and supporting rescue centres, she spend a small fortune every year.
I love this. Her own dogs are so cute, and what a great way to use her large platform.
My sister lives in SoCal, and there are TONS of dogs up for adoption there because people adopted dogs over the Pandemic and then decided they couldn’t take care of them.
I live in Seattle and work for an organization that arranges adoptions for Alaskan Malamutes. The adoption process is quite strict, because as sweet as Mals are, they are still big dogs-80-100 pounds!-and sometimes strong willed. What I do is arrange and conduct home visits. That’s part of the process to assure that our sweet dogs end up in forever homes.
It’s rewarding work and I’m sure Jennifer gets the same warm, fuzzy feeling that I do.
It’s lovely that she is using her fame for such a worthy cause!
Speaking of a forum, here is the link to the national Alaskan Malamute Rescue organization.
They are always looking for volunteers, for foster homes (to care for the dogs and retrain as necessary to get them ready for forever homes), and of course, people willing to adopt!
Plus, 25% of donations go to caring and placing elderly Malamutes (7 years or more).
Click “Rescue Affiliates” for your local organization:
https://www.malamuterescue.org/
“they got him microchipped, neutered, and up-to-date on all his vaccines. Maybe that’s pretty standard now, but it wasn’t when I rescued My Girl over a decade ago, ”
@Kismet where do you live that it wasn’t routine for rescues to chip, neuter and vaccinate a dog prior to adoption 10 years ago? Even some of the “looks legit to the public but rescue insiders know can be kinda shady” rescues in the Philly area were doing those as a matter of routine 10+ years ago. The only exception was those rescues that didn’t always do “pediatric” spay/neuter prior to adoption but they usually had a clause in their adoption contracts that required neuter as soon as it was medically safe to do so, programs to track if/when a puppy adopted out prior to neuter was neutered and programs to have the adopter bring the dog to one of the vets the rescue partner with to do the surgery (paid by the rescue)