Posted: July 23, 2008, 5 a.m. EDT
Joan Rivers is speaking out on the importance of dogs in her life.
“One of the things that pulled me through [her husband Edgar Rosenberg’s death] was my dog Spike,” Rivers recently told the New York Post. “I couldn’t get over Spike [after he died], even two years later. My vet said, ‘You need someone to care for, to get your mind off Spike.’”
The vet had a formerly abused Pekinese available for adoption. Rivers took the dog home, and today Max lives the good life with Rivers in New York City. Rivers added a Havanese puppy named Samantha several years ago after Lulu, her Boston Terrier, died of cancer.
Now Rivers advises others to “adopt as quickly as you can” after losing a beloved pet.
“When somebody is happily married, they remarry quickly; it’s when somebody’s not so happily married that they don’t get married again. [Adopting] doesn’t negate your other dog’s importance,” Rivers says. “Nobody is ‘replaced,’ but, my God, go give somebody else happiness. Go help somebody else.”