Being a celebrity means never having to account for your actions. At least, that’s the impression I get from this story:

Hollywood actress and PETA spokeswoman Dominique Swain has reportedly been caught dumping unvaccinated puppies at an animal shelter.

Swain, 29, arrived at a Malibu refuge with her father and a box of eight-week-old cocker spaniel cross dogs over the weekend, reports claim.

Swain’s claim to fame, for those of you who don’t know (and I didn’t), was her role as Dolores “Lolita” Haze in the 1997 remake of “Lolita,” as well as a bunch of other films I’ve never heard of. She also bared it all for one of those slutty “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” ads for PETA.

When she dumped the puppies off, she was asked for a donation to cover their vaccinations but she claimed she didn’t have any money, despite the fact that she arrived in a snazzy BMW.

“She was really rude. Eventually she said she would make a small donation, but just left the pups there and drove off.”

The article doesn’t say where Swain got the puppies; I am going to assume her own dog was the mother. What, she could’t afford to get her dog spayed when she could afford an expensive imported car? She didn’t have any friends or family members who wanted a cute, cuddly puppy?

Now obviously, dumping puppies at a shelter is not the same as wearing a fur coat. I guess we can be thankful she didn’t take the Cruella deVil route. But since Swain seems to worry about needless killing of animals, does she not wonder what will happen to those puppies if no one adopts them? Or is it a matter of the puppies being unable to advance her career the same way posing nude for PETA did?

According to a statement from PETA, Swain has not worked with the group for years. Which is probably why she just dumped them on the shelter, rather than euthanize them and toss them in a dumpster behind a Piggly Wiggly grocery store. She must not be on the internal distribution list.

PETA’s record on placing shelter animals is pretty pathetic: Despite taking in nearly $30 million each year, it put to death 90 percent of the dogs and cats it took in over a five-year period. I guess activists are too busy dressing up like chickens in front of McDonald’s and handing out “unhappy meals” to scare children and comparing eating meat to the Holocaust to try to find homes for these animals.

Swain isn’t the first celebrity airhead to shill for PETA and then do something completely opposite. Shanna Moakler (again, who???) appeared in a video extolling the virtues of vegetarianism, and then was photographed picking out a juicy steak at a swank NYC restaurant. And Polish model Joanna Kruper hates fur but loves leather.

But if PETA recruited brainiacs to represent them, they probably wouldn’t get too many takers.