The Middle East is in flames and the global economy in meltdown, but Barack Obama revealed yesterday that he has a far weightier matter to deal with: whether his daughters get a labradoodle or a Portuguese water hound as their White House puppy.

After receiving thousands of suggestions from dog lovers since he announced on election night that Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, were to get a puppy – he says that he has had more advice on the dog than on economic policy – Mr Obama said that the choice had been narrowed down to those two breeds.

“We’re now going to start looking at shelters to see when one of those dogs might come up,” the President-elect said on ABC’s This Week. “We’re closing in on it. This has been tougher than finding a Commerce Secretary” – a jab at Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico, who withdrew from being Mr Obama’s nominee because of a fraud investigation in his home state.

Malia is allergic to dogs, so Mr Obama and his family have been focusing their search on breeds that do not inflame allergies. No dog is 100 per cent hypoallergenic, but the American Kennel Club recommends Portuguese water hounds because they do not shed their hair.

During Mr Obama’s interview, his daughters were allowed into the control room to play director and producer. The host, George Stephanopoulos, told Mr Obama: “They actually gave me a question they want me to ask you. You know exactly what it’s going to be.”

“Uh oh,” Mr Obama said. “Go ahead.”

“What kind of a dog are we getting and when are we getting it?”

Just after he was elected, Mr Obama – whose mother was white and father a black Kenyan – said he expected the dog to be “a mutt like me”. That could mean that the labradoodle, a cross between a labrador retriever and a poodle, might have the edge.

Joe Biden, the Vice-President-elect, already owns one, but they have unpredictable coats that might not help Malia’s allergies.

Whenever the puppy is chosen, the next question will be what to name it. A bookmaker in Dublin says that he has already had more than 1,000 bets on what it will be called, with money placed on a long list ranging from Washington to Dubya. Osama will get you odds of 500-1.

On a visit to a school in Chicago last month, Mr Obama told a group of children that his daughters would not only have to feed and walk the dog. “You know, if they do their business, if they’ve got some poop, you got to make sure that you’re not just leaving it there,” he said.

Mr Obama was also asked yesterday how his daughters’ first week at their new school in Washington had gone. “They seemed to thrive,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out why it is that they don’t seem fazed by anything. People think, folks think I’m cool. They are a lot cooler than I am. They just don’t seem to be intimidated.”

Money Central: The world's 10 most powerful pets

All the qualities to be top dog

Labradoodle

— Cross between a labrador and a standard poodle

— First bred in Australia in the 1980s

— Height is 16-25in. It is very easy to train because of its high intelligence, responding well to sign language as well as noises. This makes it an excellent guide dog – the reason that it was bred

— Hair can be wavy and coarse, or dry and wiry

— Cost: £750

Portuguese water hound

— First written description was in 1297, when a monk wrote of a dying sailor being dragged out of the sea by a dog matching its appearance

— Traditionally a fisherman's dog and taught to herd fish into nets

— Height is 17-23in. It is classed as hypoallergenic because it has no undercoat to shed

— An excellent family pet, but not happy when left on its own

— Cost: £1,000

Source: Times Archives

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