New White House pup Sunny: Why not a rescue dog?
| WASHINGTON
Yes, the Obamas have a new dog. Her name is Sunny, and she鈥檚 a Portuguese Water Dog like incumbent White House pet, Bo.
The five-year-old Bo wasn鈥檛 getting enough doggie interaction, apparently, so a new addition was brought in to amplify the romping level in the Rose Garden. Sunny is 14 months old, was born in Michigan, and arrived at the White House on Monday.
鈥淪unny is the perfect little sister for Bo 鈥� full of energy and very affectionate 鈥� and the first family picked her name because it fit her cheerful personality,鈥� said
As you might imagine, this fluffy, feel-good story is big Tuesday in social media. FLOTUS (that鈥檚 first lady of the US Michelle Obama, if you didn鈥檛 know) welcomed the new member of her family with with the Washington Monument in the background. Lots of room to run, it looks like.
President Obama tweeted a similar welcome, while the D.C.-based mainstream media spent much of Tuesday trying to figure out clever 140-character dog-related remarks for their own social platforms.聽A favorite of ours came from Washington Examiner political writer Rebecca Berg: shot of Sunny and Bo.
That鈥檚 a reference to President Lincoln鈥檚 famously ambitious and cantankerous Cabinet, in case you didn鈥檛 know.
However, not everyone was completely, 100 percent happy about the choice of the new dog.
Wayne Pacelle, president of The Humane Society of the United States, noted on his blog Tuesday that the Obamas made little reference to exactly where Sunny came from, other than to note that it鈥檚 the Great Lakes State.
But given her pure-bred status, it鈥檚 unlikely that Sunny came from a rescue organization or a shelter.
鈥淎s we always say in such circumstances, we hope the Obamas considered adoption or rescue as the first choice in obtaining a pet,鈥澛�.
Pacelle did thank the Obamas for making a donation to the Humane Society in Sunny's name. He also thanked the administration for pushing two rules to help reduce the suffering of dogs sold in retail commerce. One would ban importation from foreign countries of any puppy-mill dog younger than six months. Another would close a loophole and require inspection and licensing of Internet sellers of puppy-mill dogs.
But the administration hasn鈥檛 yet issued final regulations for these moves.
鈥淚t鈥檚 time for the White House to make these policies law. No more delays,鈥� wrote Pacelle.
As to the rescue dog issue, about 21 percent of America鈥檚 78 million canine companions came from rescue or shelter organizations, according to Humane Society figures.
One big area of progress has been the decreasing use of euthanasia to put down unclaimed and unadopted shelter animals.
From 1970 to 2010, the number of such euthanizations went down by 12 million to 20 million, to an estimated 3.4 million.
鈥淗owever, there鈥檚 still work to do: An estimated 2.7 million healthy shelter pets are not adopted each year,鈥� according to the Humane Society.
