The Obama Dog Blog

Dick Durbin Confirms Obama Dog Pick

Liz Atwood of the Baltimore Sun's Unleashed blog reports that this morning Illinois Senator and FOO (Friend of Obama) Dick Durbin told WBBM radio in Chicago:

The dog has been chosen and it is a male Portuguese water dog puppy. He said the Obamas actually met the dog at the White House a few Sundays ago and he has been in training. Durbin says the dog will be in the White House this week, the station reports.

Meanwhile Politico's Nia-Malika Henderson, who was traveling with the Obamas in Europe, saids that Mrs. Obamas aide's are saying the dog will arrive sometime after the Easter Egg Roll on Monday, April 13 and the end of the month.

Given, Porties' reputation for high-energy mischief, I suspect they don't want to combine the First Dog's debut with a lawnfull of excited kids hopped up on candy.

BTW, did you know the tradition of the White House Egg Roll goes back 1878 when President Rutherford B. Hayes officially opened the White House grounds to local children for egg rolling on Easter Monday.

White House Easter Egg Roll, 1889.  Library of Congress.

White House Easter Egg Roll, 1898.  Library of Congress

White House Easter Egg Roll, 1923.  Library of Congress.

White House Easter Egg Roll, 1929.  Library of Congress.

Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Diana Hopkins at White House Easter Egg Roll, 1940. Library of Congress, photograph by Barbara Wright.

Also, I did discover there is a precedent of bringing pets to the White House Egg Roll, as evidenced by this photo of Mrs. Calvin Coolidge with her pet raccoon named Rebecca surrounded by Easter egg hunters.

Mrs. Coolidge and Rebecca the raccoon at the White House Easter Egg Roll, 1927, Library of Congress.

Stay tuned...

P.S. Hat tip to Eddie Gehman Kohan of the awesome blog, Obama Foodarama, which covers all things Obama food policy, diet, and delicacy related, for the tip about Nia-Malika Henderson's info.  I'll have more from Eddie later as she delves into what the First Pup will eat.  Already, there are many questions.

Obama Dachshund Photo

 

I know it's down to the Labradoodle or the Portuguese Water Dog, but I still think the Obamas should get a mini Dachshund.  So does Olive and her dad, photographer Brian Hathcock, who took this darling shot of her a few days after election night.

See more of his great photos on his flickr site.

Via Mia Clapton's A Dog A Day blog, another wonderful dog photography site.

P.S. See photos of my own adorable (and hypoallergenic) mini longhaired Dachshund here.

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Barack and Michelle: Before They Were Mr. and Mrs. 44

Photo by Mariana Cook from her Couples in America project.  Chicago, May 26, 1996.  Photo is featured in this week's The New Yorker.  Read Cook's interview in which the young couple discusses their hopes, dreams, and concerns for the future.  And a young Barack yearns for a stable family and a dog:

All my life, I have been stitching together a family, through stories or memories or friends or ideas. Michelle has had a very different background—very stable, two-parent family, mother at home, brother and dog, living in the same house all their lives.  We represent two strands of family life in this country—the strand that is very stable and solid, and then the strand that is breaking out of the constraints of traditional families, travelling, separated, mobile. I think there was that strand in me of imagining what it would be like to have a stable, solid, secure family life.  (read more)

Buy the book Couples: Speaking from the Heart by Mariana Cook here.

Thank you, Rebecca Lansdowne of ArtPaw for sending me this amazing time capsule.

Dog Messages to Obama

Via Edopeno

Have you heard about the flickr phenomenon A Message for Obama where people post photos with personal notes to our new President.  The entries so creative and more than a few feature dogs.

by Brenda Anderson

by Chasing Daisy

by Amber in Norfolk

by Nicolas Grignon

by pixiesticks23 who is anxious that President-elect Obama's priorities are skewed.

See all the images here.  Via BallotVox.