Barack Obama has been elected to be the next President of the United States! And, as is a standard question for all newly elected Presidents with a lovely wife and children to share the White House with, Obama was asked what kind of puppy he was planning to get for the title of “First Dog.”

And yes, it’s going to have to be a dog, because 10-year old First Daughter Malia has allergies she can’t escape with a cat, but could easily avoid with just the right kind of dog. Plus, as Obama mentioned, the family is going to want a shelter puppy…

“But obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me,” said Obama, in an apparent self-depreciating reference to his mixed race heritage. “So whether we’re going to be able to balance those two things, I think, is a pressing issue on the Obama household.”

Yet a surprising number of shelter dogs are purebreds. We got our beloved giant mutant mountain poodle Beau (pictured at top) at our county’s animal shelter when he was 6 months old, and his pedigree was a whole lot more impressive than mine! A size-large standard poodle with your basic kennel cut would make a delightful First Dog!

And poodles are, among all dogs, among the few that are certifiably hypoallergenic. The list includes breeds like the Maltese, Bichon Frise, and Shih Tzus, but these are what my daughter calls “yapper punting dogs,” small enough to be utterly unimpressive in a mansion the size of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Even better, there are poodle rescue outfits out there right now with poodles to spare, and some of ‘em are already housebroken!

And if the Obamas are serious about a “mutt like me,” there are a wide variety of poodle crossbreeds invented mostly because a good percentage of them get the benefit of hypoallergenic hair so people with allergies can have a canine companion to love. There are the famous bred-to-be service dogs known as Labradoodles, and an amazing list of other crossbreeds your imagination can run with…

• Saint Berdoodle
• Scoodle (Scottish Terrier + Poodle)
• Eskapoo (for non-allergenic dog sled teams)
• Pugapoo
• Doodleman Pinscher (too scary for the White House!)
• English Boodle (this might be a winner, just for laughs…)

So my advice to the Obama family is to put your feelers out right now to the poodle rescue societies and be open to an interesting poodle ‘mutt’ that looks a whole lot like Winston Churchill!

A story circulating in the international news and in the blogosphere recently reported that Japanese women had been scammed into purchasing sheep that were being sold as poodles. Come on, they couldn’t see the hooves or hear the ‘Baaaaa’? If I were Japanese, I’d have been very insulted.

Of course, the story of the hoax turned out to be a hoax. From Snopes on their ‘Urban Legends’ page…

The notion that anyone who had ever seen a dog (which is most everyone) could be fooled by sheep proffered as poodles is as implausible (if not more so) as the idea that anyone could really mistake a rat for a dog. (The claim that “sheep are rare in Japan and most people do not know what they look like” is just silly: even schoolchildren who have never seen live sheep learn to identify them from pictures and drawings and can recognize them as something distinctly different than dogs. Certainly the creatures’ bleating instead of barking and having hooves in place of paws are some basic, easily recognized clues.) And in this case the tale is not something that supposedly happened to the indefinite “some tourist” in “a foreign country,” but to thousands of Japanese in their homeland, people who were reportedly shelling out the equivalent of $1600 per sheep-dog before anyone caught on to the scam and blew the whistle.

No, the swindle story never made the news in Japan, which should have alerted gullible net-noobs to something amiss. Besides, the least bit of fact checking would have demonstrated that the company supposedly perpetrating the scam – ‘Poodles As Pets’ – doesn’t exist in Japan.

The hoax hoax was promoted when radio personality Paul Harvey broadcast the story on his For What It’s Worth program, reporting that “Thousands of women paid many thousands of dollars for miniature white poodles which are now growing up and turning out to be furniture-eating-sheep.”

Hahahaha!!! Oh, my. Looks like there are some newscasters out there who needed a classroom poodle in school to teach them that there is indeed a difference between a dog and a sheep. The Japanese already knew better!

Big Ras Bob our first black standard poodle was a beautiful dog. And among the many notable qualities of the breed – such as beauty, intelligence, non-allergenic coat, minimal shedding and a palpable love of humans – there is also a sort of pride in being what they are. I’ve always called that “Breed-ism.” They know they’re the cream of the crop, and comport themselves accordingly.

We were living in St. Augustine, Florida in a rented duplex near the airport for awhile. Until that house burned down due to faulty wiring in the vacant half, quite the traumatic family event even though the only life lost in the fire were three goldfish. Our next door neighbors had a beautiful purebred black chow they didn’t keep a tight leash on, so it was inevitable that when she went into heat the full roster of neighborhood male-mutts were going to do their best to get their sperm into the mix.

But that girl-chow had eyes only for Bob. She was completely smitten and determined to capture his qualities for her own offspring. She was surprisingly vicious to her other suitors, keeping herself exclusive to the love of her life, and sure enough was soon pregnant with a litter of… um… ChowDoodles? PooChows?

The house burned down before they were born so we never got to see them, but we were quite sure they’d be some very cool dogs. And within the history of purebred dog breeding the exemplars are often crossed-out after developing some considerable genetic infirmities, so as to get “fresh blood” into the system, strengthen the genome, and then those out-crosses are put back into the pedigree tree for producing new, healthier champions a few generations down the line. This has occurred many times in poodles, who are among the oldest of breeds.

I’ve mentioned the genetic (and possibly epigenetic) issues that afflict poodles in our current culture. Our vet told us after having to put down the second of our beloved dogs that with poodles and boxers, if they don’t die getting hit by a car they are almost sure to die of cancer. That’s not a happy situation, not the least because these dogs are so very sweet and loved to excess by their people. I’d sure like to know if those PoodChows lived longer than Bob did, and didn’t develop cancer.

I’ve also mentioned Labradoodles since meeting a golden who immediately stole my heart. I understand that the offspring of the cross can have lab hair or poodle hair, this one was essentially indistinguishable from a poodle and could easily be re-integrated into a championship line for “new blood” grandpups.

I found a list of the most popular current poodle out-breeds over at Pet Lover blog, and simply imagining what these dogs might look like is definitely a fun exercise! Try your imagination out on some of these…

Saint Berdoodle – Saint Bernard + Poodle. A dog smart enough to rescue the skiers, but who drank the brandy on the way.

Scoodle – Scottish Terrier + Poodle. A dog short enough to lick the ground and insists on wearing a kilt.

Eskapoo – American Eskimo Dog + Poodle. The snootiest sled dogs on the trail.

Pugapoo – Pug + Poodle. Why would anybody want to do that to a perfectly good poodle?

Doodleman Pinscher – Doberman + Poodle. Would probably make an excellent regiment of war dogs.

English Boodle – English Bulldog + Poodle. Who put him up to it? How could she stoop so low?

You’ve probably seen examples of the rest of the list, which includes Cockapoos, Schnoodles, Lhasapoos, Pekepoos, Pomapoos and Weimardoodles. Hmmm… I can see that some of these crossbreeds aren’t going to contribute much in the way of desirable genes to the king-breed of Poodle-Poodles. But if anyone’s interested, you’ll find a list of cross-breeders at DoodleFinder. Be sure to exercise your imagination BEFORE you buy, so you won’t be unpleasantly surprised!