Toxins in secondhand smoke can cause lung and nasal cancer in dogs and malignant lymphoma in cats, studies have concluded reported USA Today .

American Lung Association of New Hampshire states that birds that sit on a smoker’s hand could contact dermatitis from the nicotine that remains on the smoker’s hand. They could also pull out their feathers.

Nicotine is highly toxic to animals if ingested. A dog that accidentally eats tobacco could become weak, have trouble breathing – or die.

Veterinarians at Animal Hospital in McLean, Va., said a lethal dose of nicotine in dogs can be about 20 to 100 mg . Cigarettes tally 10 to 30 mg of the chemical, and cigars that you buy can contain 15 to 40 mg.

Other breathing problems such as asthma could develop. Common symptoms of an allergic reaction to secondhand smoke include scratching, biting and chewing skin, which could easily be mistaken for fleas, according to the American Lung Association of New Hampshire .

“Nicotine from secondhand smoke can have effects to the nervous systems of cats and dogs,” Dr. Sharon Gwaltney-Brant of the ASPCA.

The American Lung Association of New Hampshire listed other smoking-related dangers :

Two cigarette butts, if eaten by a puppy, can cause death in a relatively short period of time.
Cats exposed to secondhand smoke in the home have a higher rate of an oral cancer called squamous cell carcinoma.
Birds may develop eye and respiratory problems.
Animal lovers who won’t quit for themselves can do it for their pet.

Mary Ellen Ratuszny smoked for more than 30 years. But after learning secondhand would complicate her dog’s heartworm treatment the choice was clear.

“I did not want to do anything that was going to jeopardize the health and recovery of this dog. It was a very immediate, very concrete motivator,” the Michigan woman told The Grand Rapids Press .

The City is looking into a growing number of complaints over some people walking several dogs at once, in off-leash areas.

According to the Calgary Sun, the bylaw department is now looking at possibly capping the number of dogs a person can walk at one time.

Bylaw boss Bill Bruce says the problem isn’t necessarily with canines causing trouble, but rather the mess they’re creating.

He says the growing problem came up during the City’s recent review of off-leash areas.

In the future, it could mean dog-walking businesses, and perhaps even Doggie Daycares, may need a license to operate.

These are fashion items I don’t even own (and lust after) and they were all for the dogs!

This got me thinking about the business of pet clothing in general. Being a dog owner myself and, I like to think, a fashionable one at that, I’ve never purchased anything beyond a bandanna for my pet. That said, she has been gifted a chic rain coat which she absolutely loathes wearing. Her aversion to couture notwithstanding, the pet fashion industry has grown into a multi-million dollar enterprise.

According to ezinearticles.com, last year the pet supply industry made $34 billion dollars, and Petsmart alone revealed profits in the $38 million dollar range–and this is in the middle of a recession!

Further examining fashion trends for dogs, my eyes were opened to the items we might typically buy for ourselves and are now buying for our dogs. Check out these doggie hairpins from Glamour Dog which will run you somewhere in the vicinity of $8 a pop.

Then there is the trend of dog jewelry. Turns out diamonds are not just a girl’s best friend, but also her dog’s. Swarovski dog collars and, yes, necklaces are the featured item at Doggie Designer. The prices here are not too bad, ranging in price from $60 to $70–but if you’d really like to spend some dough, buy your pet some Christian Audigier accessories. If you want to carry your dog in an Audigier, you’ll have to part with upwards of $300 bucks.

So, the question is, would you part with your hard-earned dough to keep your dog in the haute-est of fashions? Or perhaps you’ve already succumbed to doggie fashion trends and you have some favorite places to shop? Leave us a comment about your thoughts on doggie couture.

On Easter, the Baltimore Bureau of Animal Control received a call about youths throwing rocks and bricks at a year-old dog tied up in the 3700 block of Greenspring Avenue near the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School. The dog was severely injured.

When a concerned citizen went to rescue the dog, the youths began throwing rocks and bricks at him. The suspects appeared to be 12 or 13 years old.

The one-year old dog was brought to the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS) where she was being treated for severe injuries. She had wounds on the top of her head, her snout was very swollen with multiple wounds, there were multiple wounds around and in both nostrils, hemorrhages in both eyes, a wound on the dorsal surface of her front paw, and crusted blood in booth ears, both nostrils, and in her eyes.

“Getting the serious attention of law enforcement, prosecutors and the community in cases involving allegations of cruelty to animals is an essential step in protecting the community,” the Humane Society said in a statement.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call (410) 396-4698.

HENNIGSDORF, Germany – Lions, giraffes, tigers, rabbits, bears, rhinos and even owls can go blind from cataracts, but an east German firm has an answer: custom-made “contact lenses”.

The procedure is delicate, to say the least, and requires special training for veterinarians.

But it has propelled tiny S & V Technologies, founded by Bavarian chemist and entrepreneur Christine Kreiner in the former communist east, to global leadership in a highly specialised field.

The acrylic intraocular lenses are implanted into animals’ eyes when their vision has clouded to the point of total impairment, and are fitted for various species, from cat-eye-sized to fist-width for rhinos.

“Cataracts generally means blindness for animals, unlike for humans,” said the head of the company’s veterinary division, Ingeborg Fromberg.

“And because animals have short life spans, it means losing quality of life in a greater share of that life.”

Since its launch in 2008, the firm has fielded calls from Sea World in San Diego (a sea lion who had trouble performing his tricks due to severely blurry vision), an Australia nature park (a blind kangaroo) and a Romanian zoo (a visually impaired lioness).

The German lenses have helped turn the lights back on for dozens of house pets, racehorses, circus animals, guide dogs — literally preventing the blind leading the blind — and even wild creatures roaming nature reserves.

Special lenses that absorb UV rays can also be used to help horses afflicted with “head shaker syndrome”, an excruciating and ultimately life-threatening ailment.

Although the expense of such an operation and subsequent check-ups can run into the thousands of euros (dollars), the procedure is often worth it for animals that have gone blind — and for their owners.

“When something is unsettling for an animal, when they don’t have a good sense of their surroundings, they can begin to get aggressive or unpredictable or withdrawn,” Fromberg said.

That can mean the pricey investment in training an animal is wasted.

Impaired vision can also blunt the sex drive, stopping animals from reproducing. The World Wildlife Fund, for example, has paid for lens transplants for brown bears in a preserve in China.

“Of course that is only one side of it — some are pets and seen as members of the family and worth any expense,” Fromberg said.

She said the trickiest part of treating big animals such as elephants and rhinos is the anesthesia.

“If larger animals lie for too long on one side during an operation then it puts too much pressure on the heart. That makes things a bit harder,” she said.

“With a giraffe, for example, its head may never be lower than its heart. Every animal has its peculiarities that you have to contend with.”

CEO Kreiner, a 64-year-old from Munich, chose to set up her unusual firm in Hennigsdorf, a sleepy riverside town that has become a high-tech haven in the 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell.

On the capital’s northern outskirts, Henningsdorf also made smart business sense because the European Union and the German government both pitched in to provide one-third of the startup costs.

Kreimer has founded five different firms in her years in business and said she was drawn to Germany’s ex-communist east in the heady trailblazing mood of national unification in 1990.

“I thought at the time that it would be better to go to a poorer part of Germany rather than stay in Bavaria,” the prosperous southern state, she said.

“The thinking was that it would be less bureaucratic in an eastern state, and that the subsidies would be better than in the west. It was the right decision.”

Her various enterprises blossomed and evolved over the years, culminating in the founding of S & V Technologies in January 2008. The company now even has a US subsidiary in Salt Lake City.

S & V posted turnover of nearly 2.5 million euros (3.5 million dollars) last year and Kreiner expects it to grow by one-third this year based on lens sales but also a thriving anti-wrinkle products division — for humans.

She employs 32 people with another five to join this year.

“There are no global players active in this area that are able to crush medium-sized firms with a major marketing operation,” Kreiner said, adding that her few competitors — in Canada, France and the United States — were all smaller than S & V.

The main limit to her business’s growth is a lack of vets able to perform the implantation procedure, which is why she now organises training weekends for animal doctors from around the globe.

Participants have come from as far as Australia, Brazil, Japan, Taiwan and the United States to learn the procedure in the company laboratory on eyes harvested from animal cadavers.

I’m sorry to rain on your picnic, but Chanel is NOT the world’s oldest dog, and needs to live much longer to justify the title. Many dogs are (or were) older than her.

Guinness Book of World Records requires documentary proof of all claims, which rules out many older animals.

The latest story on the subject has been posted at http://tinyurl.com/ndu5oj

PETALUMA — A boxer-mix with a prominent under-bite named Pabst has been crowned the world’s ugliest dog.

The annual World’s Ugliest Dog contest was held Friday at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Northern California.

Pabst was rescued from a shelter by Miles Egstad, of Citrus Heights. Egstad took home $1,600 in prize money, pet supplies and a modeling contract with House of Dog for Pabst

Miss Ellie celebrates her win in the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest’s pedigree class at the Sonoma-Marin Fair on Friday, June 26, 2009, in Petaluma, Calif. She is a blind 15-year-old Chinese Crested Hairless.

Seeing this, made me love Valerie much more….

Over here is a droopy-faced bloodhound , over there a meticulously groomed prancing poodle , and in between a small Maltese dog that your untrained eye almost mistook for a mop. How can judges possibly compare dogs that seem so fundamentally different?

In a dog conformation show, judges aren’t merely comparing the dogs to each other. Rather, they judge each dog against the parameters of the idealized version of its breed. In other words, when the judge looks at your poodle, Fluffy, he is comparing Fluffy to the written standards of the ideal poodle. The standards address various body parts and attributes, including:

• Balance: overall appropriate proportions in size
• Weight
• Size
• Eyes: color, size, shape
• Ears: shape, length, position • Head: shape
• Muzzle: shape, length
• Whiskers: thickness
• Teeth: kind of bite (e.g. level or scissors bites)
• Tail: how it arches and sets (e.g. how high or low)
• Shoulders: bone, muscle
• Legs: muscles, stance, proportionality
• Coat: texture, length
• Color: accepted breed colors

A judge will use his hands to inspect the dog’s body, including its bones and muscles. In addition to assessing physical characteristics like these, judges assess the dog’s walk (gait) and attitude. For instance, criteria might require that the dog’s attitude be cheerful, as for the beagle, or proud, as for the poodle. The American Kennel Club (AKC) has assembled these criteria for each of their recognized breeds. It gathers this information from the clubs and organizations that specialize in those breeds. The dog that the judges think matches its breed’s criteria the best wins the competition.

A golden retriever Bailey in the UK has been eating garments for 4 years, according to Daily Mail. His peculiar eating habits were revealed when vets who operated on the dog expecting to find a tumor pulled out 17 different pieces of clothing, including golf gloves, rugby gloves and socks.

 

The dachshund, a rescue dog from Port Jefferson in New York, wore an orange sweater and red goggles as her owner, Denice Shaughnessy, accepted the award marking her longevity.

“Chanel is the Guinness world record holder for the oldest living dog,” said Jamie Panas, a spokeswoman for Guinness.

The record authority reviewed a veterinarian’s certificate, statements from four witnesses and photographs to verify Chanel’s age, Panas explained.

Chanel became the world’s oldest dog following the death of Butch, the 28-year-old former record holder, in 2003.

Though visibly nervous and shaking at times, Chanel posed for photographers as she sat on a red mini-sofa.

Shaughnessy said Chanel tires quickly, wears goggles for cataracts when she is in the sun, and booties to cushion a benign tumor on her hind leg.

“I just take good care of her,” said Shaughnessy, 51, who cares for Chanel with her husband, Karl. “I treat her like a person.”

Shaughnessy got her pet from a shelter when the dog was six weeks old. Although Chanel could run miles in her younger days, now she suffers from joint problems and spends most of her days at home.

21-year- old in dog age is equivalent to 120 years old in human.

Man’s best friend already has been shown capable of sniffing out certain cancer cells, and dogs have long been put to work in the hunt for illegal drugs and explosives.

Their new front-line role in diabetes care follows recent evidence suggesting a dog’s hyper-sensitive nose can detect tiny changes that occur when a person is about to have a hypoglycemic attack.

A survey last December by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast found 65 percent of 212 people with insulin-dependent diabetes reported that when they had a hypoglycemic episode their pets had reacted by whining, barking, licking or some other display.

At the Cancer and Bio-Detection Dogs research center in Aylesbury, southern England, animal trainers are putting that finding into practice and honing dogs’ innate skills.

The charity has 17 rescue dogs at various stages of training that will be paired up with diabetic owners, many of them children.

“Dogs have been trained to detect certain odors down to parts per trillion, so we are talking tiny, tiny amounts. Their world is really very different to ours,” Chief Executive Claire Guest told Reuters TV.

The center was started five years ago by orthopedic surgeon Dr John Hunt, who wanted to investigate curious anecdotes about dogs pestering their owners repeatedly on parts of their body that were later found to be cancerous.

At around the same time, the first hard evidence was being gathered by researchers down the road at Amersham Hospital that dogs could identify bladder cancer from chemicals in urine.

The move into diabetes followed the case of Paul Jackson, who told Guest and her team about his dog Tinker who warns him when his sugar levels get too low and he is in danger of collapsing.

“It’s generally licking my face, panting beside me. It depends how far I have gone before he realizes,” Jackson said.

Tinker has now been trained by the Aylesbury center and is a fully qualified Diabetic Hypo-Alert dog, complete with red jacket to announce himself as a working assistance animal.

The center is continuing work to perfect dogs’ ability in spotting signs of cancer. But while dog-lover Guest says it would be nice to have a dog in every doctor’s office to screen for disease, ultimately that is not practical.

Instead, she hopes the research will lead to the invention of an electronic nose that will mimic a dog’s.

“At the moment electronic noses are not as advanced as the dogs’, they are about 15 years behind. But the work that we are doing and what we are finding out will help scientists advance quickly so that they can use electronic noses to do the same thing,” she said.

The Reportable Food Registry (RFR) requires a responsible party to file a report through an FDA Internet portal when there is reason to believe that an adulterated food will cause serious adverse health consequences or death to humans and animals. The FDA’s “draft guidance,” provides questions and answers pertaining to the registry.

The RFR applies to all FDA-regulated categories of food, including pet food. Only infant formula and dietary supplements are exempt from RFR requirements. “Responsible party” is defined as the person who submits the registration information to FDA for a food facility that manufacturers, processes, packs or holds food for human or animal consumption in the United States. Federal, state and local government officials would also be able to use the portal to report information that may come to them about such foods.

The establishment of the registry is mandated in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Amendments Act of 2007. The Congressional intent for the RFR, according to the FDA, is to provide a “reliable mechanism to track patterns of adulteration in food [which] would support efforts by FDA to target limited inspection resources to protect the public health.”

The RFR and electric portal are slated for implementation on Sept. 8.

The FDA’s draft guidance explains:

• Who must submit RFR reports of adulterated foods to the FDA
• How, when and where RFR reports may be submitted
• What information the RFR reports must include
• What steps must be taken to notify others in the supply chain of the adulterated food

Interested persons may submit written comments on or before July 27 to the Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), FDA, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.

Net sales for the first quarter, which ended May 3, increased 9.5 percent to $1.33 billion, compared to the same period a year ago.

Petsmart Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Chip Molloy said business did start to slide a bit toward the end of the first quarter. He anticipates continued pressure on product growth margins in the second quarter.

Comparable store sales, or sales in stores open at least a year, increased 3.9 percent over last year. Molloy said the company expects second quarter comparable store sales in the low-single digits. For fiscal year 2009, the company is maintaining its guidance of comparable store sales of low-single digits.

Also in the first quarter, comparable transactions, which are used to gauge traffic, were up 0.1 percent — the first increase in seven quarters, according to officials.

Pet service sales for the quarter were $142.8 million, which represents an increase of 10.3 percent from the year-ago period. Molloy said grooming remains strong, while boarding and day care continue to weaken. The company expects to see service sales growth for the fiscal year in the mid- to high-single digits.

During the first quarter, 26 stores opened, compared to 35 in the year-ago period. The company is anticipating new store growth for the fiscal year of 2009 at 40 to 42.

James Symington, a former Canadian police officer, choked back tears as he formally took possession of the five descendants of his beloved German shepherd named Trakr, who died in April.
Symington was presented with Trakr’s offspring after winning a competition organized by California firm BioArts International — the “Golden Clone Giveaway” — to find the world’s most “cloneworthy” dog.

Symington said he hopes the puppies — Trustt, Valor, Prodigy, Solace and Deja Vu — will go on to follow in Trakr’s footsteps.

“We’re here to celebrate that Trakr’s legacy lives on in these five beautiful puppies,” he told reporters. “If they have the same attributes Trakr did, then hopefully they’ll develop into world class search and rescue dogs.”

Symington and Trakr arrived at the site of the World Trade Center collapse, commonly referred to as Ground Zero, on September 12, 2001 and were one of the first K9 search and rescue teams on the scene.

After working nearly non-stop for 48 hours, Trakr located the last human survivor found in the rubble of the twin towers.

“Trakr was an extraordinary search and rescue dog. His work at Ground Zero was the culmination of his career,” Symington said.

BioArts International, which says it offers the world’s first commercial dog cloning service, partnered with South Korea’s SooAm Biotech Research Foundation to clone Trakr under the direction of scientist Hwang Woo-Suk.

BioArts International chief executive Lou Hawthorne said canine cloning would remain beyond the reach of ordinary pet lovers, with cloned dogs costing an average 144,000 dollars each.

Hawthorne defended the right of people to clone their dogs instead of obtaining new pets from rescue shelters.

Here’s the calendar of 2009 dog fashion show, if you are near and have free time, enjoy it !

Calendar of Events 2009

• July 17-20 Los Angeles
  California Gift Show
  Los Angeles Convention Center
  Contact: 213-430-2300
  www.californiagiftshow.com
• July 23-26 Fort Mitchell, Ky.
  Petquest
  The Drawbridge Inn
  Contact: 717-691-3388;
  www.barkleigh.com
• Jul. 25-28 Orlando, Fla.
  Orlando Gift Show
  Orange County Convention Center
  Contact: 678-285-EXPO;
  www.orlandogiftshow.com
• Aug. 8-11 San Francisco
  San Francisco International Gift Fair
  Moscone Center
  Contact: 213-430-2300;
  www.sfigf.com
• Aug. 13-16 Wheeling, Ill.
  All American Grooming Show
  Westin Chicago North Shore
  Contact: http://www.aagrmgshow.com
• Aug. 15-20 New York
  New York International Gift Fair
  Jacob K. Javitz Convention Center
  Contact: 800-272-SHOW;
  www.nyigf.com
• Aug. 15-20 Alberta, Canada
  Alberta Gift Show
  Northlands Agricom
  Contact: 888-823-7469;
  www.albertagiftshow.com
• Aug. 22-23 New York
  Pet Fashion Week New York
  125 W. 18th St.
  Contact: 401-331-5073;
  www.petfashionweek.com
• Aug. 22-25 Seattle
  Seattle Gift Show
  Washington State Convention
  & Trade Center
  Contact: 213-430-2300;
  www.seattlegift.com
• Aug. 23-26 Montreal, Canada
  Montreal Gift Show
  Place Bonaventure
  Contact: 888-823-SHOW;
  www.montrealgiftshow.com
• Aug. 30-31 St-Hyacinthe, Canada
  ExpoZoo
  Hotel des Seigneurs
  Contact: 800-667-7452;
  www.pijaccanada.com
• Sept. 13-15 Vancouver, Canada
  Vancouver Gift Show
  BC Place Stadium
  Contact: 888-823-7469;
  www.vancouvergiftshow.com
• Sept. 15-17 Las Vegas, Nev.
  SuperZoo
  Mandalay Bay Convention Center
  Contact: 800-999-7295;
  www.superzoo.org
• Sept. 18-20 Hershey, Pa.
  Groom Expo 2009
  Hershey Lodge and Convention Center
  Contact: 717-691-3388;
  www.groomexpo.com
• Sept. 20-21 Mississauga,Ontario, Canada
  National Pet Industry Trade Show
  International Centre
  Contact: 800-667-7452;
  www.pijaccanada.com
• Oct. 2-4 Rosemont, Ill.
  H.H. Backer Christmas Trade Show
  Donald E. Stephens Convention Center
  Contact: 312-578-1818;
  www.hhbacker.com
• Oct. 13-15 Orlando, Fla.
  Pet Care Services Association Convention and Expo
  Orlando Hilton
  Contact: 877-570-7788;
  www.hhbacker.com
• Nov 16-19 Guangzhou, China
  China International Pet Show
  Chinese Export Commodities
  Fair Pazhou Complex
  Contact: www.cipscom.com

If you get a panda as your pet, is it so cool? Do you want to get a panda bear, although breeding a real Chinese panda bear is illegal and forbidden? Now, someone can do this, look at this picture, the girl and her panda pet.

“Wow, it is so cool!” You must say that when you see this picture. See another picture.

It is a dog? Feel Puzzled? Actually, it is not a real panda bear. It is a dog named Chow Chow. Dog’s owner dyed white puppy in order to make it more like a panda. What is a cute dog!

The first Pet Airways flight will depart July 14 from Teterboro, a small airport outside New York, en route to Washington, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles, said founder Alysa Binder.

“Pet Airways was created to provide a safe and comfortable solution for the transport of pets,” said Binder and her husband Dan Wiesel in a company statement.

“Inspiration for the concept came from difficulties encountered when shipping Zoe, our Jack Russell Terrier, across the country.”

Flights, which will cost 149 dollars each way, will be on a modified Beechcraft 1900 supplied under contract with Suburban Air.

The plane usually fits 19 passengers. This time there will be room for 50 cats and dogs.

“There will be two pilots and a pet attendant. Everything is done for the safety and comfort of the pets,” Binder said.

Pooches and kitties won’t actually get seats. They’ll travel in kennels stacked on custom-made shelves.

Like many flights in these security conscious days, a check-in two hours before take-off is requested. To avoid the queues — and any potential pre-flight nerves — check-in can be done 72 hours earlier.

“We’ll be happy to board your pet at our PAWS Lodge until the flight,” the company’s website advertises.

Then it’s time to go to the Pet Lounge and onto the aircraft.

The airline asks that pets answer the call of nature while on the ground, but says they don’t have to.

“Potty breaks are very important to your pet. With the human airlines, your pet could be made to hold themselves for a very, very long time. Pet Airways monitors the last time your pet had a potty break, and makes sure that they get regular potty breaks along the way,” the petaway site says.

In this undated photo released by the Seoul National University shows the world’s first transgenic female beagle dog carrying fluorescent genes that make the canine glow red, named Ruppy in 2 days after birth at Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, April 28, 2009.

South Korean scientists say they have engineered four beagles that glow red using cloning techniques that could help develop cures for human diseases.

The four dogs, all named “Ruppy” — a combination of the words “ruby” and “puppy” — look like typical beagles by daylight.

But they glow red under ultraviolet light, and the dogs’ nails and abdomens, which have thin skins, look red even to the naked eye.

Seoul National University professor Lee Byeong-chun, head of the research team, called them the world’s first transgenic dogs carrying fluorescent genes, an achievement that goes beyond just the glowing novelty.

“What’s significant in this work is not the dogs expressing red colors but that we planted genes into them,” Lee told the reporters on Tuesday.

His team identified the dogs as clones of a cell donor through DNA tests and earlier this month introduced the achievement in a paper on the Web site of the journal “Genesis.”

Scientists in the US, Japan and in Europe previously have cloned fluorescent mice and pigs, but this would be the first time dogs with modified genes have been cloned successfully, Lee said.

He said his team took skin cells from a beagle, inserted fluorescent genes into them and put them into eggs before implanted them into the womb of a surrogate mother, a local mixed breed.

Six female beagles were born in December 2007 through a cloning with a gene that produces a red fluorescent protein that make them glow, he said. Two died, but the four others survived.

The glowing dogs show that it is possible to successfully insert genes with a specific trait, which could lead to implanting other, non-fluorescent genes that could help treat specific diseases, Lee said.

The scientist said his team has started to implant human disease-related genes in the course of dog cloning, saying that will help them find new treatments for genetic diseases such as Parkinson’s.

A South Korean scientist who created glowing cats in 2007 based on a similar cloning technique said that Lee’s puppies are genuine clones, saying he had seen them and had read about them in the journal.

“We can appraise this is a step forward” toward finding cures for human diseases, said veterinary professor Kong Il-keun at South Korea’s Gyeongsang National University. “What is important now is on what specific diseases (Lee’s team) will focus on.”

WASHINGTON – New White House dog Bo took a bow before a paparazzi-style pack of cameras on Tuesday, prompting President Barack Obama to proclaim the new First Pet had “star quality.”

The newest addition to the Obama family, a cuddly black-and-white Portuguese water dog, finally emerged from the White House on a leash held by First Lady Michelle Obama, ending a long saga dating back to the 2008 campaign trail.

The pooch was promised by Obama to his daughters Malia 10, and Sasha seven, to make up for his long absences while running for president.

The six-month-old dog drew a chorus of “ahhhhs” as it was paraded before journalists by the girls at a photo op on the south lawn of the White House, and Obama was asked where the new pet would sleep in the presidential mansion.

“Not in my bed,” he joked and said that the breathless news coverage of the dogs imminent arrival was “spectacular” and said Bo had “star quality.”

Obama also said he had heard that Portuguese water dogs were partial to tomatoes, adding: “Michelle’s garden is in danger.”

Asked about former president Harry S Truman’s remark that the only way to have a friend in Washington was to get a dog, Obama said “I finally got a friend — it took some time.”

After showing off their new pet to the cameras, the Obama family took a long walk around the White House grounds, with the tail-wagging pooch in tow.

At one stage, in what might be the most photographed dog walk in history, the president broke into a run as the dog yanked on the leash and nearly pulled him over.

For a White House that likes to keep the media on a tight leash, the saga of the Obama dog has been a source of favorable stories for months — barely a presidential news interview has gone by without a canine question.

The dog is a gift to the Obama family from veteran Senator Edward Kennedy, who owns several Portuguese water dogs.

The Washington Post reported that the girls named the pet Bo in part because their cousins have a cat of the same name, and perhaps after Michelle Obama’s late father’s nickname Diddley, after the late rock ‘n’ roll legend Bo Diddley.