Advocates of animal adoption will be glad to know that VP-elect Joe Biden plans to add to his litter - this time with a shelter dog.
Biden, who has been criticized for buying a German Shepherd puppy from a Pennsylvania breeder - notably a breeder who was later cited for several violations - now says he and his wife Jill are planning to get another dog, this time from a shelter.
Here's what he told George Stephanopoulos on the ABC Sunday morning news show "This Week With George Stephanopoulos":
"I've had German Shepherds since I was a kid and I've actually trained them and shown them in the past. So I wanted a German Shepherd, and we're going to get a pound dog, which my wife wants, who is hopefully a Golden [Retriever]."
Perhaps as a mea culpa to his many critics, Biden added that his family has always adopted animals in the past, including a cat. And he's glad that the Vice President's residence has a fenced yard with several acres so the new Biden dogs have plenty of room to play.
OK, we weren't among those who pounded on the new Veep just because he bought a dog from a breeder (we've done the same thing in the past). But it's good to know there will be two Biden dogs and that one of them will be adopted.
Lucky dog.
It's not often that I see stray dogs running in my neighborhood, but around the world, it is often a larger problem than most of us can imagine.
The other day, my wife directed me to a photo she found on the San Francisco Chronicle's Web site, which points out the problems that occur when dogs go unneutered. It's a sweet picture actually, but the accompanying caption tells a bigger story.
In the photo, a black puppy is draped over the shoulder of a man who has just adopted him at an event in Bucharest. The puppy is all arms and ears, but his face has a contented look: He's going to his new home, where he'll be cared for and loved, sheltered and fed. No more wandering the streets eating scraps and dodging cars.
In Bucharest, the caption says, some 30,000 stray dogs roam the streets of the capital. On visits to Mexico, I have seen many dogs linger outside restaurants hoping for a morsel of bread or tortilla. They have no home, and so the problem of breeding goes unchecked. Unneutered dogs multiply.
I'm not sure how many dogs found loving homes in Bucharest, and I'm not sure what happened to those that were not adopted. But it clearly points out what can happen if dogs and cats are not neutered and spayed. Thankfully, our shelters in the U.S. don't allow dogs or cats to be adopted unless they've been neutered.
There are more photos of the Bucharest dogs on the Internet, many still waiting for someone to claim them. Hopefully, most of them did.
