First Family To Grow By Leaps And Bounds, Thanks To New Puppy Did Anyone Ask Socks’ Opinion About This?

Move over, Socks. President Clinton’s got it bad: puppy love.

A half-hour at play on the South Lawn with a chocolate Labrador puppy Friday and Clinton was smitten. Result: The pup’s being adopted into the Clinton clan.

The president, whose only child left for college in September, recently told longtime friend Tony Harrington that he’d “love a puppy” and had been thinking about getting a dog for a couple of months, spokesman Joe Lockhart said.

Harrington brought the 3-month-old pup to a White House audition Friday afternoon. President and puppy scampered around the South Lawn for half an hour before Clinton clinched the adoption.

No lower-ranking official than the president himself will be responsible for disciplining the playful puppy and protecting White House rugs, but Clinton won’t be starting from scratch.

“The dog is not coming over right away. They want to make sure he’s fully trained before he comes,” Lockhart said.

Socks, the family cat attended to mostly by the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea, will now have to share her hide-outs in the Oval Office and White House residence. But, said Lockhart, “She’ll have all the available resources to deal with the emotional trauma of this new addition.”