Let me say from the start that I realise this admission isn't going to make me any friends. Indeed, I may never have written anything more guaranteed to strain the nation's resources of green ink. So let's get it over and done with, quickly: I had a puppy and I gave it away.

Yes, I bought a puppy. And I couldn't cope with it. And I gave it away. After three days. Barack, do you know what you have done? In his first press conference as President-elect, Mr Obama referred caustically to the way the puppy he promised his children had become a “major issue”, the hottest new topic on his website.

Google “Obama puppy”: nearly six and a half million results! That's double the number for “President Bush dog” and Obama hasn't even chosen the breed yet. The only thing that animal-lovers love more than offering useless, sentimental advice is passing judgments on those who do not take it. Mr Obama has entered the bear pit, the lion's den, fill in animal-based cliché here.

Can we go beyond the clichés? The three days I spent in possession of a puppy this summer must rank as among the most miserable in my life. “Blankie” (named after my daughter's best friend's little sister's comfort blanket), or “John” (named after my daughter's favourite person at the time) was eight weeks old when he arrived. The RSPCA had refused to let us have an adult rescue dog (child under 5, one of the random rules they impose), and I was wary of managing a young puppy. So I did everything I could think of to get ready for it. Never can a person have prepared so well. I read the book - twice - and visited the breeder (“I'm not a breeder,” she said, as three different varieties of pregnant dog roamed around her kitchen). I did the training course, bought the crate.

I know what the Obamas are going through. I pored over websites, talked to owners, worried over breeds. I was astonished at the bitterness between the advocates for pure-breeds and what Obama called “mutts”. Owning a dog clearly didn't make for a happy person.

Roaming from springer spaniel to cocker, I came across something called a cockerpoo (half cocker, half poodle), which led to another breed I had never heard of called a labradoodle (half labrador, half miniature poodle). You can look up all about those - hypoallergenic, scruffy, good temperament, cutest puppies in the world; and not too big. Although admittedly what swung it for me in the end was the thought that if we crossed the “doodle”, as the labradoodle is known, with a cockerpoo, we could make a cocker-doodle-poo, and nobody seemed to have thought of that before.

So, yes, I thought of everything. I had the food, the bowls, the lead, the bedding, the toys, the training. I was prepared for everything. Everything except the puppy.

It's like having a baby, the experts all cautioned. My god! A baby? If only. You can put a nappy on one of those. And they don't move like s*** off a shovel. Nor do they consider play to be the nibbling of small children's feet. Two days after Blankie-John's arrival, my world had shrunk to: one garden table. I sat on the bench trying to work, my daughter stood atop it asking whether he was going to bite her toes again, Blankie-John squatted beneath it.

Blankie-John's diary was religiously annotated in accordance with the training instructions: 5.30am awake W and P; 5.50 sleep; 6.40 awake; 7am W (carpet); 7.10 feed; 7.15 garden, no P; 7.25 P (kitchen floor). This is the part, Obamas beware, that all the websites, all the advice, misses out: the boring, time-consuming, bottom- watching part - and the most common reason why people end up sending dogs to rescue shelters. “What goes in on a regular schedule will come out on a regular schedule,” blathered a US site on housetraining a dog yesterday. “If you know when your dog needs to empty out, then you'll know when to take her to her toilet area.” Yeah, right. Mentally I cancelled the next two months' engagements, and realised that either my job or the dog was going to have to go. You cannot work and look after a puppy. Although perhaps it is different if you are President of the United States, when presumably someone else will look after it for you.

Do you remember what it did to Cherie Blair's reputation when she kicked out the Downing Street cat? Nothing shatters an image like cold-heartedness towards an animal. In the UK, we actually have more stringent rules about caring for animals than we do about caring for children - you can be jailed, for instance, for letting your dog get fat.

The American pet lover is no less obsessive. With typical loss of perspective, they have flocked to offer minute and irrelevant pieces of advice to the President-elect. “Sleeping on the bed, or in his own, beside their owner is their great joy” - Obama supporter Evie from Burke, recommending to the President-elect the miniature schnauzer. Another fan proposes a “Malti-poo” (word of advice, Mr Obama, don't choose anything with “poo” in the name, it stops being amusing on day one). Many more offer their own puppies as ideal. Catsforobama.com has fallen strangely quiet.

Still others get more political: “Please Please... DO NOT PURCHASE A PUREBRED PUPPY!!!! RESCUE A PUPPY!!! You were elected to rescue the USA. Now, please rescue an adorable puppy...” - DJ, on barackobama.com. “STOP PUPPY MILLS with the DOG-ACITY OF HOPE”, reads another plea. Get a small one, get a bold one... but from no one, the advice: don't get one.

Good luck to Obama. He will not be allowed to fail as I did with Blankie-John (I gave him to a lovely new home, by the way). It was a sad and humiliating experience, and not at all funny. Perhaps somebody reading this will think twice before making the same mistake. And not be fooled by cute pictures of little Malia romping with her puppy on the White House lawn.

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