Why the talk show host says "things are going so terribly wrong right now."

ELLEN DeGENERES burst into tears during her opening monologue during Tuesday's broadcast, lamenting over her dog-adoption dilemma.

She went on to explain her dispute with an animal rescue group that took back a dog she'd adopted after discovering she gave it to her hairdresser.

"Today is a hard day for me," she told her studio audience. "Today is bad. I am not capable of coming out and pretending to be funny and on when things are going so terribly wrong right now."

"I'm so sorry," she said, "I'm just not able to pretend. So I'm going to tell you the story. ... On September 20, I adopted a dog from a rescue organization here in the area. I got it neutered, I got it trained and I paid my vet extra money to take it home to sleep in the bed with him at night instead of a cage. I spent $3000 on this puppy to acclimate it, to train it to be with our cats. It was just too much energy and too rambunctious.

"My hairdresser, who I see every single day, she and her husband have two little girls, 11 and 12 years old. They were just looking for a puppy. They have a dog. They said, 'We love Iggy, can we have Iggy?'

"Iggy has been with them for two weeks. I get updates every single day and pictures every day of how happy Iggy is and how much their daughters love Iggy. The organization contacted me yesterday and said, 'How's Iggy?' And I told them the truth. I didn't lie. I said, 'Iggy has a great home.'

"Well, 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. These two little girls had bonded to the dog. I thought I did a good thing. I tried to find a loving home for the dog because I couldn't keep it. I was trying to do a good thing.

"Because I did it wrong, those people went and took that dog out of their home, and took it away from those kids," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "I feel totally responsible for it and I'm so sorry. I'm begging them to give that dog back to that family. I just want the family to have their dog. It's not their fault. It's my fault. I shouldn't have given the dog away. Just please give the dog back to those little girls."