And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for.  Ladies and gentlemen, Bo Obama.

Update!  Here he is, as promised.

First, I apologize for our silence this last month.  I’d like to say it was because I was busy, but honestly I can’t account for where the time’s gone.

And speaking of things we haven’t heard about in a while, it’s the Secretary of Puppy.  That’s right, after an excruciating post-election tease fest, there are finally leaked details about the Obama family’s dog.  Quoting from MSNBC:

The little guy is a 6-month-old Portuguese water dog given to the Obama girls as a gift by that Portuguese water dog-lovin’ senator himself, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. The girls named it Bo
…

Well suited for formal occasions at the White House, he’s got tuxedo-black fur, with a white chest, white paws and a rakish white goatee.

Apparently the White House was planning a grand unveiling on Tuesday, and we’ll have full coverage of it if it happens, but something this good was bound to leak.

The dog I grew up with, Canyon, used to love it when my family got together in the den to watch a movie. He never so much as glanced at the TV and instead kept his eyes locked on the big bowl of popcorn we always made. His perseverance was inevitably rewarded with a handful of kernels, which he scarfed down as fast as he could before going back to gazing intently at the bowl. Once the popcorn was completely gone, he usually curled up at our feet and fell asleep, completely ignoring the images moving on the screen in front of him.

This is dangerously close to “America’s Funniest Home Videos” territory, but it made me smile so I’m posting it.  I don’t know what he’s chasing but I bet it was something great.  Ice cream that makes you skinny maybe?

“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” dipped its toes into the presidential puppy speculation on Monday.  Actually, dipped its toes is misleading.  It did a three-and-a-half-minute bit on puppies that you shouldn’t have to live without for a minute longer.  So here goes:

Friend of the zoo Ezra sent along a link to this blog post: Wired Magazine’s ten most amazing animal videos on the Internet.  It’s quite a time commitment, but they’re all worth checking out (I can’t decide if I like the hippo massage or the giraffe neck-fight more). I’ve reposted this, the cutest video of the bunch.

It’s about a year old, but this post from liberal super-blog The Huffington Post contains five videos in what they called the Cute Animal Videos of the Day section.  Sadly, it didn’t become a regular feature, but of the five videos they included, all but one of which are as cute as the poster claimed it was.  I think the baby cat screaming was a bit more creepy than cute, but you can judge for yourself.  This is my favorite, a dog with some chickens who doesn’t know whether or not to be terrified.  Enjoy!

Okay, so most of these are for Megan.  Every time I post another one (or if she’s working on a post) I can hear each video being played in order.  Several times each week I hear the tell tale opening notes of the Nora the Cat video.

Megan likes all manner of cute animals, but I know she’s got an especially soft spot for golden retrievers.  With that in mind, here are two puppies (and a zillion other dogs) learning about the physics of leverage.

I’m posting this video for a couple of reasons.  First, because it’s from Reno, NV, my home town, and second because of the part where two of the puppies decide that they’re not at all interested in the finish line and they turn around. -Alex