If Bo Obama turns out anything like his big brother Solo, the Obama family will need to buy a lot of new shoes. And toys. And toilet paper.
The first pup's 14-month-old sibling, who lives with owner Karen Douglas near Washington, D.C., has taken a bite out of a laundry list of items, including shoes, purses, books, toilet paper, paper towels, toys that make noises and an empty two-liter soda bottle. And it seems like Bo could have the same affinity for chomping: Word from the first lady is that the new dog has already discovered the joy of chewing feet.
President Obama may get that “big, rambunctious dog” he had hoped for, after all. Douglas says Solo is a “whirling dervish,” but eager to please. When she met him last August, “I saw a certain gleam in his eyes that said, 'I just want to please, but no one seems to know how to talk to me.'" Since then the dog, named Solo because he was the sole product of his mother and father’s first litter, has had quite an education in clicker training, obedience and agility, and is beginning to take on a retrieval sport unique to Portuguese Water Dogs known as Water Work.
Solo and Bo come from a long line of water-loving dogs. Their grandmother, Pooka, could swim the backstroke; their great-grandmother Eliza would swim laps. Says Douglas, "If you walked beside her she would give you the evil eye that said, 'Leave me alone I am doing my laps.' " It looks like Solo shares that love: He often stands in the rain with his face toward the sky.
Douglas says she just wants Solo to be healthy and happy. “He likes to hear that he is a good dog!” she says. Still, he can't be left unsupervised at night — even to sleep in bed with his owner. “Solo can’t do that yet," says Douglas. "He can take a sock from the laundry or a book that wasn’t put away and start chewing.”
Let's hope the Obamas, at least, are getting their sleep — sounds like they might be in for a (adorable) handful!