There are so many rescued dogs waiting for a loving home that it seems silly to support people that are breeding them unnecessarily.

The President’s new dog ought to be a 10 second blurb “special interest” piece in the TV news. The kind of story that would close out the 6:30 evening news in places like Casper and Iowa City- and only if they were having a “slow news day”. The kind of story that only us crazy “dog people” would even notice or care about. A few dog lovers would grab a link to the story from some Podunk newspaper west of Fargo, and it’d make the rounds on all the dog-related message boards and chat lists. Those of us who are “into” dogs, would see it. And we’d all have our requisite dog-related discussions about the dog for a week or so, and it’d be forgotten- even by us.

Instead, this topic has been covered by major *national* media outlets numerous times, beginning after Obama’s election in freakin’ NOVEMBER! ENDLESS speculation over what kind of dog he’d pick has been going on for the past FOUR MONTHS. It’s been obsessed over by a bunch of people who wouldn’t correctly label a Portugese Water Dog if one fell out of their kitchen cabinet wearing a nametag and offering a formal introduction in crisp English…..yet suddenly there are so many people with so many vehement opinions?

It makes me sad to say this, but this is a great example of why the rest of the world likes to mock America. Most of us are very out of touch with anything that’s not happening “in our backyard”. Our news media is obsessed with ratings….they feature whatever gets our attention. And sadly, presidential pets and sordid sex scandals grab our attention much quicker and hold it for much longer, than stories of civil-war ravaged 3rd world countries in some hard-to-pronounce country with a lot of vowels that we’ve never heard of. Never mind they’re real people; families and children, living in real danger of having a live grenade land in their makeshift dwelling at any given moment. Nobody alive today in America has ever REALLY had to live under that kind of threat- we’re safe in our own little cocoon with our supermarkets and our broadband Internet. We can’t relate to the crisis of actual human beings so we change the channel; we formulate our indignant rage instead over the plight of unwanted shelter dogs and the President’s choice in canine companion.

In a room full of 50 random Americans, three might be able to find Iraq or Somalia on a map. Two might be able to accurately define a “Somali pirate” without using the words “peg leg” or “parrot”…..but maybe I’m giving too much credit. Yet in the same room, I’d bet money that at least 45 of those 50 people could tell me who got kicked off of Dancing with the Stars last night.

That, and something tells me there’s more than a few people who are throwing around terms like “puppy mill” while spitting venom at “breeders” in general…..yet some of these folks couldn’t accurately describe the exterior appearance of the average commercial kennel if they lived next door to one. How many of these people actually know what they’re talking about from hands-on experience…..and how many are just spitting venom about “dog breeders” when they’re simply brainwashed by animal-rights hype? I am reading too many HSUS catchphrases in some of these diatribes to suspect otherwise….