First Rabbit

April 10, 2009

In Dog We Trust

Posted: 08:01 PM ET

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Editor’s note: TMZ is reporting the First Dog, a six-month old male Portuguese Water Dog, will arrive this coming Tuesday.

Jack Gray
AC360° Producer/Writer
**this blog was originally posted on April 7th, 2009**

Now that his overseas trips is complete, President Obama can get back to focusing on the important things. Like getting his Portuguese Water Dog so his critics can call him un-American.

The president told Jay Leno a few weeks ago that the First Dog would be “in place” when he returned from the G-20 and NATO summits. I have, of course, no reason to doubt his timetable. Even a politician wouldn’t have the gall to tell a fib while sitting in a chair once occupied by Hillary Duff.

The whole thing reminds me of when I got my dog, Sammy, four and a half years ago. I was looking through the classifieds for a competitively priced mime class when I stumbled upon an ad for Labrador Retriever puppies. Seeing as how I was already going out to get a touch-up on my “Doritos are for Lovers” tattoo, I figured why not get a dog while I was at it.

I would later find out that the so-called “experts” advise you to actually think carefully about whether you have the time and financial resources necessary to raise a living, breathing, pooping animal with a life span of 10-15 years but, frankly, that seemed like too much math.

Plus, as far as I was concerned, if it didn’t work out, I could always enlist her in the Coast Guard. (Fortunately it didn’t come to that because it would have been a crap shoot as to whether she could have passed the drug test.)

Anyway, I remember pulling up to the breeder’s residence, which looked like the house from The Brady Bunch…if the Bradys were anti-government survivalists and Alice was selling stolen DVD players out of the laundry room.

The next thing I knew I was driving home with a little bundle of black fur sitting – and peeing – on a piece of newspaper in the passenger seat. The poor thing. She didn’t know what the hell was going on. She had the same sort of clueless look in her eyes that Levi Johnston had the other day when Tyra Banks asked him if he and Bristol Palin practiced safe sex.

And thus began a chapter of my life unlike any I had experienced before. All of a sudden I was responsible for this peculiar little creature that liked to climb up onto the top of my head and fart. It was like being roommates with Danny DeVito all over again.

And no, to be clear, I never had an “overnight guest” who tripped and fell, au naturel, over Sammy’s crate in my bedroom. I have no idea what you’re talking about.

It all seems like a lifetime ago. Sammy will be five this August. My little girl is all grown up, smoking menthols and getting tattoos of her own. At the risk of sounding sappy, let me say that there is nothing in this world that can compare to the unconditional love and devotion of a dog.

The president can take comfort knowing that rich or poor, young or old, Democrat or Republican, his dog will love him no matter what.

As long as he vetoes that stimulus package for cats.

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