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Check out this amazing video from CBS News about an unusual friendship between a dog and an elephant. (Sniff!)

The Winnipeg Humane Society, a Petfinder member in Canada (yes, we do have rescue groups in Canada, as well as Mexico, posting their pets on Petfinder!) has some labradoodle puppies for the Obamas.

According to AFP:

The Winnipeg Humane Society helped police break up an illegal puppy mill in the city in December, and seized 55 Labradoodles, including 21 puppies and two pregnant females.

One of them, named "Lilly," has since given birth to a litter of 11 "bright and happy" puppies, the shelter's executive director Bill MacDonald told AFP.

"When I learned that President Obama's first official state visit would be to Canada, and that he was looking for a puppy for his daughters, I thought a shelter puppy would make a great gift from our government," he said.

Read the full story here.

Officials in the California city of Lancaster have adopted an ordinance that requires, among other things, all pit bulls, rottweilers and pit and rottie mixes to be spayed or neutered (read the L.A. Times article here).

This is breed-specific legislation, to be sure, but is it perhaps not a bad idea?

Now, I know a lot of our readers are, like me, pit bull parents and defenders of these wonderful and misunderstood dogs. We are horrified by the idea that we could one day have our beloved pets seized from our homes, as has happened in American cities in the recent past.

But that's not what this law is about. It's about spaying and neutering these dogs who are euthanized by the thousand because shelters are overflowing with them and too few people are willing to adopt them. (This law is arguably also about racial profiling, but let's just stick to the animal welfare implications here.)

Petfinder's own Kim Saunders was on Sunday's episode of the TODAY show talking about things to consider before adopting a dog (for more great tips on that subject, check out our new book, the Adopted Dog Bible).

Also starring on the TODAY show segment were some adorable, adoptable dogs from Animal Care & Control of NYC (the min pin and rat terrier are handled by Brendon, Animal Control Officer extraordinaire and Puppy Love Pet Rescue of Roselle Park, NJ ... including Kim's own foster dog, Carly the pointer.

Studies show expense is one of the top five reasons people give up their pets to shelters. And these days, with the economy in such a bad state, pets are being hit hard.

But there are lots of ways to fit Fido and Fluffy into the budget and still maintain their quality of life -- and yours. This weekly series will feature practical tips that every pet guardian can use while the purse strings are tight.

This week's topic? Treats!

It's fun and it feels good to offer a pet extra treats. Treat-giving shows that we love our pets and want the best for them, right? Sure, but treats are an added expense that the pet can live without. And guess what? If you offer your pet his regular food the same way you offer treats, he won't know the difference.

Check out this great clip from this morning's episode of the TODAY show, featuring our own VP of shelter outreach, Kim Saunders, and Petfinder member Mt. Pleasant Animal Shelter in East Hanover, NJ.

I love that this clip contains some positive news about adoption -- some states are seeing an increase in adoptions, even as more pets are surrendered due to home foreclosures -- as well as an unexpected plug for senior pets at the end, when the puppy one anchor is holding starts squirming and crying as the older dog on another anchor's lap sits quietly!

One adopter, Christine in West Wareham, MA, was moved by Tuesday's historic Presidential inauguration to send in this touching Happy Tail:

Today is January 20, 2009, inauguration day for Barack Obama. While a great deal of lucky folks are witnessing history in DC, I am inspired to write to you with the days events unfolding on the TV behind me.

Next to me, lounging on the queen size bed in our guest room, are my two dogs: Brewster and Nola. And although Brewster has his own story to tell, I feel compelled to share Nola's on this historic day.

In late February of 2007, my husband and I traveled with my nephew's high school Habitat for Humanity group from Albany, NY, to New Orleans. Before leaving for the long drive, I visited Petfinder to locate animal shelters in the area to visit.

(After adopting Brewster from a shelter, my husband and I now have a tradition where no matter where we are on vacation, we visit a local shelter to walk a dog and share some hugs and smiles -- because even though it's so hard to leave them behind and I know I can not save them all, I can, at least, offer them a moment of fun and hope.)

Anyone who thinks you can't get an A-list dog from a shelter or rescue group hasn't been to the movies lately.

As Julia Szabo points out in her New York Post column, the star of the new movie Hotel for Dogs, a terrier named Cosmo, was surrendered by a family who couldn't handle his high energy, and his double, J.R., was "discovered" at a Northern California animal shelter.

The movie also features a pair of rescued pit bulls (one of them a three-legged tripod), and as it turns out, the film's producer insisted as much. Check out this great article on BestFriends.org, which reports:

Movie producer Ewan Leslie is a devout pit bull lover who works with Karma Rescue in Los Angeles. Says Leslie, "When we started working on the movie, I told Mark Forbes, our head trainer from Birds and Animals, Unlimited, that we had to have some pits in the movie."

The article also says the cast and crew found homes for seven dogs, six of them pit bulls (three of those pits were adopted by crew members, including Pearl, a blue pit who'd been abandoned in a parking lot and who can now be seen on the movie's poster. And as if that weren't enough, the movie's site, hotelfordogsmovie.com, even links to Petfinder!

Skunks can be actors, too. One of our Petfinder members, Skunk Haven, Inc., in North Ridgeville, OH, and its founder, Deborah Cipriani, will be featured in the new PBS Nature documentary, Is That Skunk?

One of Deborah's rescues, Monk, will portray the skunk on the beaches of Martha's Vineyard. Monk and his pal Violet can be seen going after bees in a hive. Several others will be digging through trees, walking in the woods and just ... being skunks.

The show premieres at 8 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 25 on PBS.

The Obama family is making the transition to First Family, and we all know what's next: getting that new First Dog.

We're so happy for daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, and so pleased that the Obamas are going about their search for a new pet in a responsible way: They plan to reach out to shelters and wait patiently for the right pooch to become available for adoption.

The family is concerned about all the right things: finding a pet that will match their lifestyle and choosing a dog appropriate for Malia's allergies (how great that the Obamas believe a kid with allergies can know the joy of having a pooch -- they must have a good pet-loving pediatrician!).

I just want to shout out a special thanks to the First Family for providing us with such a great example of responsible pet selection. If folks follow their lead, I believe far fewer pets will end up in shelters.