ohmidog!

There’s nothing like a fresh blanket of snow to bring out the inner puppy in your dog.

Which tends — no matter how many hassles the snow might be causing you – to bring out the inner child in yourself.

Which then makes your dog even sillier. And so on.

It’s a joyous cycle — as opposed to one of those vicious ones — and, cold as it gets in the park, we tend to prolong the visit because our dogs (or us?) are having so much fun, lingering until our toes have all but lost their feeling.

Snow, like life, goes better with dogs.

All the talk about the yet to be selected, procured or named White House Dog has gotten me to thinking: Isn’t it time to start giving some consideration to the White Doghouse?

Turns out, Stephanie Rubin is way ahead of me. Rubin, a Los Angeles landscape designer, is owner of Sustainable Pet Design and inventor of the Greenrrroof Animal Home. And with a little help from her friends she’s already built and arranged delivery of “Summa Canum, The Obama Dog Home.”

Summa Canum (Latin for “Top Dog”) has been created “to provide an appropriately sustainable and stylish home for the new leader of the free canine world.”

At the same time, the project’s aimed at introducing eco-friendly practices and materials to the American people.

On the Sustainable Design website, Rubin says public interest in the Obama dog — not yet selected, though the First Family is reportedly leaning toward a Portugese water dog — inspired her to create a dog home as a gift for the Obama family.

“As we began construction on Summa Canum, one vendor after another expressed a desire to contribute. Summa Canum is now a gift from many. Materials donated include historic wood, greenroof plants, eco-friendly paint, bio-fuel, expert advice, as well as arrangement of transportation with a rock-n-roll legend.”

Summa Canum ins’t an exact replica of the White House. But it is modeled on Greek Revivial architecture that was popular during our nation’s early years.

It is made of wood from cedar trees that President Andrew Jackson planted along the driveway of his estate, The Hermitage. After a tornado felled these trees in 1998, EarthSource Forest Products reclaimed the wood for lumber and has donated the last of it to Summa Canum.

Like her other creations, Summa Canum will have a green roof, consisting of vegetation supplied by Emory Knoll Farms, a Maryland nursery. The dog home will arrive at The White House unplanted in order to provide the Obama kids with the opportunity to get their hands dirty in their own little garden.

Third Planet Energy has arranged for delivery of Summa Canum by Neil Young, a longtime champion of environmental causes, who will haul it with his biofuel-powered 1959 Lincoln. Amoeba Music provided financial support to offset the cost of the trip.

The otherwise dog-friendly state of Washington is working to remove two embarassingly unfriendly laws from its books, both of which require wandering dogs to be shot.

The state Senate unanimously approved a bill Monday that could repeal both, the Associated Press reported.

“I thought it was a joke. I didn’t realize that this was in statute,” said Sen. Dale Brandland, R-Bellingham, sponsor of the measure to repeal the old laws. “It’s very outdated … they need to go.”

One of the laws in question gives dog owners 48 hours to kill their dog if it is found killing another animal. The other law requires sheriffs to kill any dog running at large without a metal dog tag, between the months of August and February.

The measure now moves to the House for consideration. The laws have been on the books since the early 1900s when the health and welfare of livestock was of greater concern to state residents.