The big day is finally over, the new President is in the White House. So, the next big question is finding out when the new first dog will be indogurated.
The choice seems to have come down to a Labradoodle or Portuguese Water Dog.
The Portuguese Water Dog dates back to the 1200s and worked on boats with Portuguese fishermen, according to the website of the Portuguese Water Dog Club of America.
Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., has helped make them famous, returning to the Capitol after brain-cancer treatment with his two Portuguese water dogs.
The Labradoodle, on the other hand, is a relatively new dog whose crossbreeding between a Labrador and a poodle goes back only to the 1980s.
In his election-night victory speech, Obama promised his two daughters, Sasha and Malia, they could have a puppy in the White House. He later said Malia is allergic and they would need a “hypoallergenic” dog, and that they also wanted a pound dog.
Both dogs are non-shedders and don’t cause as much reaction in allergy sufferers as other dogs, according to Stu Freeman, president of the Portuguese Water Dog Club of America.
“There really is no hypoallergenic dog,” he says. “We tell people to spend time around the dogs to make sure they’re going to be OK. The hair might not bother them, but the saliva might.”
Freeman adds it can be difficult to find either breed in shelters because “rescue groups will always get word they’re in shelters and save them.”
Obama told Stephanopoulos they were going to start “looking at shelters to see when one of those dogs might come up.”
It would be great if either of these dogs could be adopted from a shelter, but it’s looking doubtful. Do you think President Obama conceded to saying he would look for a shelter dog because of the pressure he felt to do so?
Of course, now there’s a debate about the choices with the AKC, they don’t recognize the Labradoodle as a breed. The ASPCA isn’t advocating for either dog, they are hoping the potential first dog will be a rescue or shelter dog.
We hope a rescue gets chosen too. Give me a bark, let me know what you think.
