Poll says Obamas should adopt puppy

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- U.S. President-elect Barack Obama should get his family a puppy from a rescue shelter, say an overwhelming number of people interviewed for a CNN poll.

Obama promised his daughters, Sasha and Malia, the family would get its first dog after the presidential campaign ended last month.

Since then, the search for the new first dog has generated more comments than almost any other topic on Obama's campaign Web site, CNN reported Tuesday.

By a 2-to-1 margin, those surveyed in a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll said the Obamas should adopt a dog rather than buy one from a breeder or a pet store.

Those polled suggested more than 70 breeds, with Labrador retrievers garnering 13 percent and mutts and poodles 9 percent, CNN reported. Seven percent favored terriers, while 6 percent favored German shepherds or golden retrievers. All other breeds comprised 3 percent with those polled almost evenly divided on whether the dog should be male or female.

Forty-four percent of the 1,096 people polled Dec. 1-2 said they currently own a dog, while another 44 percent said they had once owned a dog. The poll had a sampling error of 3 percentage points.