There is clearly one major concern on the minds of the American public right now: What kind of dog will the First Family get?
Conservative writer Bill Kristol actually sees the dog issue as being a harbinger of doom for the GOP as it shows Obama may be the Next Great Communicator. (Great line: “If one were being churlish, one might say that it was typical of a liberal to promise the dog before delivering it. A results-oriented conservative would simply have shown up with the puppy without the advance hype.“) Perhaps one of the great unspoken and unintentional strategies of the campaign was to let voters know that a vote for Obama meant two cute girls would get a puppy. This is of course ironic because McCain already has a huge number of pets. It’s like seven dogs, some birds, cats, etc. Even given the unknown number of houses that’s a lot of pet. But here too people wanted change over experience.
Here, as the President-elect said, are the issues: “We have two criteria that have to be reconciled. One is that Malia is allergic, so it has to be hypoallergenic. There are a number of breeds that are hypoallergenic. On the other hand, our preference would be to get a shelter dog, but, obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me. So — so whether we’re going to be able to balance those two things, I think, is a pressing issue on the Obama household.”
The answer is simple. You do as we did and go to one of the many breed-specific dog rescue societies and get a shelter dog of the type you need. I am sure they would all fall over themselves faster than puppies trying to get to a chew toy.
We recommend a pug from Pug Rescue of New England. I have no idea if pugs meet the allergenic criteria and I don’t care. What I do know is once you get a pug, you then have a pug and what could be better than that?

All is Well.
The most pressing question is what to call the dog. I’ve decided the best, most dog/situation appropriate name is….Maverick!