Raul Julia Levy NEWS.com

The Free Willy Foundation, under the umbrella of the Earth Island Institution, joins Hollywood’s elite calling for the release of a captive Orca whale.

Hollywood, CA (PRWEB) March 12, 2008 — Imagine roaming around in an eight by ten room for the rest of your life, receiving the same food day in, day out, at the same time, performing the same routine over and over again. Feeling claustrophobic? Depressed? That’s how Lolita feels as she swims in an 18 feet deep, 35 feet by 80 feet tank, only a fraction of the vast ocean she once explored, eating the same ration of fish and jumping through the same hoops.

Lolita is the orca whale held captive at the Miami Seaquarium for the past 37 years. Recently her story has made international news as celebrities have stood behind the campaign for her release. On January 23, Newsweek ran an article about Lolita titled “Free Lolita! A Whale Story” that explains in detail the whale’s inhumane plight.

With Permut, Longi and Donnor on board, we maintain of unwavering confidence and hope in releasing Lolita from her exploitative existence at the Miami Seaquarium Recent media coverage has compared Lolita’s story to that of Keiko, the orca star of the Free Willy movies, directed by Richard Donner. In 1994, the Earth Island Institution (EII) established the Free Willy Keiko Foundation (FWKF) that eventually realized its mission of successfully rehabilitating Keiko to his oceanic home in the volcanic Westman Islands of Iceland.

For the Keiko Project, the Free Willy Keiko Foundation received generous assistance from the Earth Island Institute and numerous other foundations. According to EII’s website, the organization “works for solutions to environmental problems by promoting citizen action and incubating a diverse network of projects.”

The rehabilitation of Keiko involved many steps. First the FWKF negotiated the donation of Keiko from the Reino Aventura amusement park to the project. After successfully transporting Keiko from Mexico City to Oregon, the rehabilitation team built a rehab pool, and eventually a sea pen when Keiko was returned to Iceland to assimilate to his native waters. When Keiko lived in the sea pen, the team re-taught him to eat live fish and other skills to live in the wild.

Keiko’s story gives scientists, activists, philanthropists, and Hollywood producers, directors and actors inspiration to forge ahead with the efforts to free Lolita. The latest coup for the campaign to retire Lolita is the recent involvement of the Earth Island Institution: The Keiko Foundation.

Raul Julia-Levy, celebrity spokesman for Lolita’s release, said, “Having the Earth Island Institution aligned with our efforts brings a one-two punch to our campaign. We now have the experience of Richard Donner in our quest to free Lolita.”

Donner, also the executive producer of Free Willy, raised money and assembled a cast of thousands for the rescue, rehabilitation and release of Keiko. Knowing the controversy surrounding the release of a whale held for entertainment purposes, Donner brings to the equation his compassion and inspiration.

Another high-powered individual to join the campaign is music legend Elton John. In an article published in the Times Colonists, Elton John stated in a letter found on his website, “I have been deeply moved by efforts to free Lolita and wish to add my name to the campaign to return her to home waters, where she can hopefully reunite with her family.”

“She has spent most of her life performing daily in a small tank and I wish to add my voice to those others who are attempting to see her either freed or fully cared for in retirement in a sea-pen within the waters where she was captured almost 30 years ago,” said Julia-Levy. “A powerful group has been meeting the past two weeks to strategize for the campaign. The Miami Seaquarium won’t know what hit them.”

Adding to the humanitarian efforts are recent recruits David Permut who produced the 1996 blockbuster Face/Off and Steve Longi who co-produced the recently released Charlie Bartlett. Permut and Longi join Oscar-winning producer Jonathan Sanger, best known for producing Vanilla Sky and Mission Impossible, and Anna and the King and The Martian Child’s producer Ed Elbert in the battle to free Lolita.

“With Permut, Longi and Donnor on board, we maintain of unwavering confidence and hope in releasing Lolita from her exploitative existence at the Miami Seaquarium,” said Julia-Levy.

Julia-Levy encourages private citizens concerned about anthropomorphic mammals like Lolita to contribute to the campaign for Lolita’s release by donating to the Keiko Foundation.

Further information about the Earth Island Institute may be obtained from their website or by contacting:

David Phillips
Earth Island Institute
300 Broadway, Suite 28
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 788 3666 X 145

This is what happens when Hollywood saves the whales

A motley crew of Hollywood homeboys may be banding together for a benefit concert to free Lolita, a killer whale who’s lived in captivity for four decades performing at the Miami Seaquarium.

Efforts to return Lolita to her Pacific Northwest home have been underway for years, but it hasn’t gotten much press until Hollywood producer Raul Julia-Levy signed on to help bring aboard as many stars as he could. So far, he’s reportedly delivered Johnny Depp, Snoop Dogg, Harrison Ford, and 50 Cent (who, in addition to having a soft spot for urban green spaces, “loves animals like you have no idea”).

As yet, the Miami Seaquarium folks have been unwilling to negotiate. Then again, as one news story points out, “they haven’t had to deal with the likes of Johnny Depp and 50 Cent.” Word. Those finger-guns are fierce.

Hollywood producer has assembled cast to lobby for Lolita

Hollywood producer Raul Julia-Levy’s current project involves an impressive cast ranging from Johnny Depp, Lindsay Lohan, and Harrison Ford to Elton John, 50 Cent, and Plácido Domingo. He’s attracted high-powered producers including Cameron Crowe, Ed Elbert, and Ron Howard. It’s a veritable A-list role call, and he’s still recruiting.

But the brightest star in Julia-Levy’s lineup — and no doubt the biggest, at 7,000 pounds — is Lolita, a 40-year-old killer whale living in a 20-foot-deep tank at the Miami Seaquarium.

Taken from her family while still a juvenile, Lolita has been performing for sunburnt tourists twice a day over the last 37 years. The tank she lives in is just four times her size at its widest; she’d have to circle it more than 600 times to travel the same distance her still-wild family members might in an average day. Her only companion — another killer whale from her pod, or family group — died 20-some years ago after repeatedly bashing his own head against the enclosure walls. In her native Pacific Northwest waters, whales like Lolita have lifespans similar to humans; in a tank, that life expectancy is cut in half.

“The conditions that she lives in are barbaric,” Julia-Levy shouts to me over the phone, unable to contain his anger. He decided to get involved in the campaign to free Lolita last year, when he learned that it was in need of star power. But as spokesperson for the glittery troops he’s amassed, Julia-Levy — the son of actor Raul Julia — emphasizes that he and the other Lolita-loving producers and celebrities are involved as regular citizens, not activists.

“We are people who have consciences,” he says, “and everyone in this campaign from Hollywood has a mind of their own, and we believe that what we’re doing is the right thing simply because animals should live in their normal habitat.”

Their fight is not a new one. In fact, activists have been trying for years to convince the Seaquarium to retire Lolita — at times, offering up to $1 million for her release. She made national television in 1995 when played a recording of her pod’s vocalizations and viewers watched the whale cozy up to the speaker and listen. In 2003, a documentary about Lolita, Slave to Entertainment, hit film festivals across the country, garnering more attention for the cause. But only in the last few months has the campaign begun to gain momentum again, making news as more and more big names join up.

Julia-Levy’s passion for this campaign was evident just a few moments into our conversation — and his fervor shows no signs of waning. When asked what’s next, he hinted at a plan “involving a ‘big stick,’” but said he couldn’t elaborate just yet. No doubt when he does, he’ll have plenty of star power behind him.

How did you first hear about Lolita and get involved in the campaign?
I knew about Lolita for a long time, but it was probably about a year ago when I really got involved with the campaign. I was actually a little depressed because my little dog had just died — he was 9 years old. It was a very tough time for me, and I was looking at pictures of my dog on the internet and then I came across … [a video] of Lolita and the conditions of where she lives. And I got even more depressed.

Then I did a little bit of research on the situation and I contacted the Keiko Foundation, which is [under the umbrella of] the Earth Island Institute. They’re the ones that have the vast experience relocating animals to their natural habitat — like Keiko [the star of Free Willy] and Springer.

Who all is on board so far?
The latest one to join the campaign is Elton John. We have some of the most powerful producers on board: Jonathan Sanger, Ed Elbert, Richard Donner (who was behind the Keiko campaign and was extremely instrumental in the release of Keiko), David Permut, Steve Longi. We have a wide range of celebrities, too, including Johnny Depp, 50 Cent, [Hayden Panettiere, Lindsay Lohan, Plácido Domingo, Janet Jackson, Ringo Starr], Harrison Ford … the list is pretty extensive.

We really just want to send the right message. We want people to educate themselves and to learn and know that it is not possible for an animal of that magnitude, that large, that in her normal habitat is used to traveling long distances — at least 80 to 150 miles a day — to be confined in a small, little tank, day after day, night after night for the past 30-something years. That’s not normal. That animal needs to go back to her normal habitat.

What does it say about our culture that it wasn’t until these famous faces got attached to the campaign that people started to pay attention?
Unfortunately, in our society nobody listens to your next-door neighbor when he raises his voice. … When celebrities speak loud and stand up, it seems like everybody listens, it seems like everybody takes it more seriously, and I don’t understand why normal people do not do the same thing … This is work that we all have to do as citizens. We all have to raise our voices when something is not right. Why do we have to wait for celebrities to raise their voices first?
Is it the responsibility of celebrities then — because they are influencing the public this way — to research these organizations and get involved?

I think it’s everybody’s issue … every citizen in this country has the same responsibility as any celebrity in Hollywood. Everybody should be responsible for taking care of our environment, our water, our animals. This responsibility belongs to everyone.

The bed we’re gonna be sleeping in tomorrow, we’re making it today.

What do you say to the argument that Lolita shouldn’t be moved?
Those who oppose this are extremely arrogant. Who are they to say that animals cannot be relocated? If you put a person in a cage for 30 years and you ask him to choose — “Do you want to get out of that cage or do you want to stay there?” — what do you think he’s going to say? He’s gonna say he wants to get out of that cage. Unfortunately, animals cannot speak. That’s why we need to speak for those animals who cannot speak for themselves.
For those who say, “Oh, the animal is happy here because we love him,” it’s completely erroneous. Animals need to be loved by humans — but in their normal habitat. Meaning: Respected. We need to respect their habitat; we need to respect their privacy; and we need to respect their freedom.

I don’t want to love animals in captivity; I want to let them go. And this animal surely deserves to go back to her family, to her normal habitat. This animal has paid the highest price of her life: Being confined to a cage for 37 years. I can tell you 100 percent that animal cannot wait for the day to come that she’s going to be free.

Speaking of raising voices — tell me about the benefit concert. Is that still in the works?
It’s part of our plans to put on a benefit concert — absolutely. We want to do it in Miami, a couple of blocks from the Seaquarium. We’re planning a series of events.
But right now, our team is in the process of negotiations with the Seaquarium. We will try every single diplomatic road to resolve this situation properly for both parties. This has to be a winning situation for both parties.

I think [Seaquarium owner Arthur] Hertz should really think about this because he’s got a whale that’s not going to live more than five years in that tank. And he can come out of this one looking like a hero. It’s up to him. But like I said, our team is putting together a diplomatic plan to negotiate the situation, make both parties win, and do the right thing.

So that’s the first step … and if that doesn’t work?
Then the campaign goes to a whole new level …

Sarah van Schagen is Grist’s assistant editor.

GQ has named Barack Obama one of its “Men of the Year” - along with Baltimore’s Michael Phelps and actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Jon Hamm - with a cover and article that went to press before Election Day, says the Huffington Post.

The article about Obama - also named “Game Changer of the Year” - was written by Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Meanwhile, Obama’s appearance on CBS‘ 60 Minutes on Sunday night gave the venerable news show its highest overnight ratings in nearly a decade, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Steve Kroft spent almost the entire hour interviewing the president-elect and Michelle Obama, drawing 24.5 million viewers, according to the preliminary Nielsen estimate.

That is more viewers than for any other episode of a prime-time show seen this season and is the biggest audience for 60 Minutes since January 1999.

ROME, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) — Italy is working towards a meeting between United States President-elect Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday.

    Speaking after an Italo-German summit in Trieste, Berlusconi said it was one of Italy’s top foreign policy priorities to try to return the Untied States and Russia to the “spirit” of a 2002 summit at Pratica di Mare near Rome where a landmark accord between Russia and NATO was signed.

    Berlusconi reiterated his concern over U.S.-Russian tension on tit-for-tat missile deployment, according to Italian News Agency ANSA.

    ”For anyone who lived for decades with the nightmare of two opposing nuclear arsenals, returning to the past is … to be avoided,” he said.

    Italy is making diplomatic efforts to get Obama and Medvedev together, Berlusconi said. It also took advantage of the fact that they are “young, represent the new generation of politics (and are)distant” from the Cold War, he said.

    Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said last week that a strategy of missile proliferation was “no good for Europe, Russia or the United States” and Italy could help ease tensions.

    After Moscow’s decision to deploy missiles near the Polish border in response to the planned U.S. missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, Frattini said “Italy is really one of the few countries that can play a facilitating role. And I hope President-elect Obama can meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev really soon to discuss these issues.”

    Frattini denied suggestions that Italy was “veering East” after Berlusconi said the day before Russia had been “provoked” into deploying the missiles.

    The European Union also expressed strong concern over Russia’s decision.

    Medvedev last week hinted the Russian missiles would not be deployed if the United States decided not to go ahead with its missile shield.

Obama Girls Get a White House Tour

Sasha and Malia on their way to school in Chicago last week. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

After trips to two D.C. private schools, Malia and Sasha Obama are getting a special personal tour of the White House this afternoon, accompanied by grandma Marian Robinson and their mother.

“Mrs. Obama greatly appreciated this invitation to provide an opportunity for the girls to feel at home and be comfortable in this transition process,” Katie McCormick Lelyveld, Michelle Obama’s spokeswoman, told our colleague Richard Leiby in an e-mail. Laura Bush was in Kentucky this morning for an event at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site and was expected back this afternoon.

Yesterday Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, visited Georgetown Day School and today toured Sidwell Friends — the two private institutions that seem to be at the top of the future first lady’s list. She visited the both campuses last week.

One of the most burning questions in Washington these days (besides how to get an inaugural ball ticket and where the Obama children will attend school) is: Where will Malia and Sasha get that puppy their father has promised them?

It certainly is the question being asked at area animal shelters.

Puppymania has ignited fierce competition among local pet rescue organizations clamoring to be the go-to adoption center for the next first family. The two most prominent shelters in town, the Washington Humane Society and the Washington Animal Rescue League, have both begun quiet lobbying blitzes to woo the Obamas.

The Washington Humane Society thinks Dave, a toy poodle mix, could be a contender for the Obama puppy search. Dave is considered hypoallergenic.

“The League would be deeply honored to be the source of the nation’s next first canine,” WARL executive director Gary Weitzman wrote in a letter to President-elect Obama the morning after the election. “We would love to help you add a new member to your family.”

WARL actually began its letter-writing campaign to Obama back in July - more than a month before he had formally accepted his party’s presidential nomination. “It is our fervent hope that you and your family will soon be moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” Weitzman wrote in the July 17 letter.

He even asked Obama to come in person to the shelter. “We hope that you, too, can find the time to visit the League with your family and choose the perfect dog,” he wrote. “All of our resources stand at your service, and we would be deeply honored if you could find a way to agree to this request.”

The Washington Humane Society hasn’t contacted the Obamas, but the organization recently posted a notice on its blog announcing: “WHS Offers Puppy Kindergarten Classes to First Family Adopters.”

The humane society’s president and CEO, Lisa LaFontaine, wrote that even if the Obamas don’t choose their pet from one of the WHS’s two shelters in the District, the organization would still like to do the puppy training. At the White House, of course.

“Perhaps WHS can best be considered as a resource in helping the family, and particularly the girls, with training and socializing their new companion,” she wrote.

What about finding a shelter dog that won’t exacerbate 10-year-old Malia’s allergies?

No problem, says Tara de Nicolas, spokeswoman for the Washington Humane Society. “We currently have a few dogs that might fit the bill, such as poodles and a 4-month-old Wheaton Terrier,” she says. (We like Dave, a one-year-old 7 lb. black poodle mix who is described as “gentle with kids.”)

As President-elect Obama has articulated, his family needs a hypoallergenic dog because Malia, his oldest daughter, is allergic. He said while their preference is to rescue a puppy from a shelter, “a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me.” (Meaning, probably not hypoallergenic.)

Spokesman Jim Monsma at the Washington Animal Rescue League says “you can’t put in an order for hypoallergenic” but such shelter dogs do exist. “As of last week we had a number of dogs who we believe were hypoallergenic,” he told us.

The Sleuth’s non hypoallergenic pup Zola.

The Obamas have said they aren’t getting their new dog for at least two more months, until they’re settled in the White House. And something tells us, there’ll be plenty of hypoallergenic puppies to choose from come late winter in Washington.

Full Disclosure: The Sleuth adopted her puppy, Zola (who - sorry, Malia - is not hypoallergenic), from the Washington Animal Rescue League last year. As you can see in this photo, she was pretty irresistible.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — It was heartwarming, in a way, to see Sen. John McCain and President-elect Barack Obama together the other day.

Sen. John McCain and President-elect Barack Obama meet Monday in Chicago, Illinois.

Sure, the photo op was a tad uncomfortable: The men looked like wary heads-of-state waiting for their translators.

As the cameras captured every uncomfortable moment, the two men tried some football chit-chat, but it looked forced — because it was.

Behind closed doors, the discussion was more real.

A close aide to McCain told me that the senator really didn’t know what to expect when he went into the session, but he knew he was ready to tell Obama where he could help him. He related that, after a couple of days of unwinding at his Sedona, Arizona, retreat, the senator was “back to plotting” what he can do in the Senate with his best-pal, Sen. Lindsay Graham, a Republican from South

As for Obama, he had a clear agenda. We’ve heard a lot lately about Obama’s interest in Abe Lincoln’s “team of rivals” in his Cabinet. He’s not about to go that far with the man he beat for the presidency, but he also knows that McCain will be a very useful ally.

One clear, and pressing, issue: the closing of Guantanamo. McCain is one of a small number of Republicans who agree with Obama that it ought to be closed. Obama can (and might) do this by executive order, but it’s not as if that’s the end of it. Questions remain about how to handle the detainees, and who would be better in handling that thorny issue than John McCain?

If Obama needs political cover — and credibility — on Gitmo, McCain is his man.

Likewise, McCain can also be incredibly useful to the new president on issues of climate change, defense procurement, earmarks and corporate welfare. He’s not a fellow who can possibly care anymore about angering members of the Republican Party. He’s already been there and done that. It’s now time for McCain to burnish the legacy, and his place in the Senate could do just that.

It’s no coincidence, by the way, that Obama sat down with McCain so quickly after the election. He knows he will need him.

The same goes for Sen. Joe Lieberman, the renegade independent (once a Democrat) who endorsed McCain — and said some nasty things about Obama at the GOP convention.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other angry Democrats were ready to toss him overboard, taking away his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. Then came a phone call from Obama to Reid, cautioning him not to do anything that would drive Lieberman into the arms of the Republican caucus.

The result: Lieberman remains chairman, and loses some other, more minor, posts. Without Obama, he probably would have been dethroned entirely.

Then, of course, there’s the overture Obama made to Sen. Hillary Clinton about becoming secretary of state. Needless to say, there’s not a warm and fuzzy history there.

But Obama understands this is not just about him — it’s about uniting a party, putting a best face on America to the world and, maybe most of all, bringing the Clintons into his tent. It’s an idea that comes from a leader dealing from strength, not weakness.

In fact, if Obama had chosen Clinton as his running mate, that would have been a choice made out of weakness.

The new White House chief of staff-designate Rahm Emanuel is a Chicago-style representative known for his tough politics, his tough language and the occasional unfriendly finger gesture.

But just weeks before the start of the historic Barack Obama administration, the last thing the boss-elect wanted was a public hanging of Connecticut’s sort-of Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman for his outspoken support of the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin the last several months.

There was some support for revenge (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) among those (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) who wanted to slice away Lieberman’s committee chairmanship of Homeland Security and membership on the important Armed Services Committee with McCain and Hillary Clinton.

It was the Democratic Party, you may remember, that started this fight by supporting an insurgent primary challenger of Lieberman in 2006 over the senator’s support of the Iraq war in general and the Bush administration’s troop surge in particular.

The insurgent won the primary but was blown away in the general, where Lieberman ran as an independent and drew on his longtime statewide name recognition as a former attorney general and senator who suits the state’s moderate-to-conservative Democratic mind-set. And the Republicans tacitly supported Joe by putting up a nobody and not supporting him.

So jolly Joe returned to the Senate and the Democratic caucus, where his vote was the leverage that gave the party the 51 votes necessary to control that body.

It’s one thing to support the war. It’s another, however, to support Republicans, which Lieberman did big time, even speaking in prime time at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

With a newly-enlarged Democratic majority now, Joe’s lone vote is less important. It came time to take him to the woodshed during this week’s brief congressional session before another vacation. But how would that look as a pre-inaugural first step for a new administration pledged to change the way Washington doesn’t work?

So Lieberman keeps his Homeland chairmanship, his Armed Services membership and loses a minor subcommittee chairmanship, which is like detention for a week. And life goes on.

Lieberman told reporters he appreciated colleagues’ respect for his “independence of mind.”

“That’s who I am,” said the 2000 Democratic party vice presidential nominee.

The overwhelming majority of Democrats in the caucus wanted to keep Joe on, Reid said, looking like he was not a member of that overwhelming majority but got the word from Chicago. “It’s all over with,” he said.

A little rump-session drama that may give an inkling of the Obama-Emanuel style to come. (For an entertaining video of a roast of Emanuel and his kick-em-between the legs political style, click here and see what Obama had to say about him way back in 2005.)

Jacob Straw at Scrufts with his lurcher/whippet cross

Elsa Poutler with her Fern Collie cross Photo: Philip Hollis

Copper, a Beagle/Jack Russell cross, with Shannon Weekly Photo: Philip Hollis

Gregory Short with Sally, a Yorkidoodle

Fifty-six dogs wait to go into the ring at Earls Court in an atmosphere rich with doggy shampoo. Short ones, tall ones, miniature fuzzballs with arching tails, soppy eyes and lean, mean, hunting machines; the only common feature in this canine melting pot is beautifully groomed Dennis Healey eyebrows.

Scruffts is the antidote to dog shows: a wet-nosed waggy-tailed celebration of mutt power. While Crufts draws the cream of the 209 breeds registered by the Kennel Club, its almost-namesake is open only to cross-breeds and mongrels. They are judged on good looks, good health and good manners, just as a pedigree dog would be, but without the rigid breed specifications.

It is these that have got the Kennel Club into hot water, after a BBC exposé of the health horrors caused by breeding – and inbreeding – dogs for showing. The club is reviewing its standards in time for Crufts next year, but it hasn’t stopped the RSPCA and Pedigree, show sponsor for 44 years, boycotting the biggest date in the canine calendar.

Scruffts is small fry by comparison: four classes shoe-horned into an hour and 20 minutes at the annual Discover Dogs event. Instead of an expert, celebrity dog nut Summer Strallen, the ex-Hollyoaks actress starring as Maria in Andrew Lloyd- Webber’s The Sound of Music, is doing the judging. Fourteen hundred dogs entered the regional heats this year (for £1 each).

There are many mixes on show. There is a goldendoodle, pictured above, and Daisy a labrador/terrier cross who won the golden oldie category.

Gregory Short and Sally, pictured in panel above far right, are finalists in the child’s best friend class and prettiest bitch, an amazing feat since neither dog, a one-year-old Yorkiedoodle, nor owner (aged nine) had done anything like this before their local Scruffts in Co Durham. Gregory explains Sally’s pre-show beauty routine. “She’ll have a bath and get her teeth done. I had a Doctor Who toothbrush but I’ve got one now that fits onto the end of my finger.”

Small boy and small bundle of fluff with black button eyes march into the ring like pros. “Gregory didn’t strike me as a confident child but he loves it,” says his mother Wendy.

There are oodles of poodle crosses like Sally at Scruffts, some with rough coats, others sporting 1980s bubble perms. Labradoodles were first on the scene. Intelligent and even hypoallergenic, they have become super-fashionable and can fetch over £1,000 (surely the perfect puppy for the Obama girls?). “In the late 1990s we used to get calls from people wanting wolf hybrids,” says Liz Colley of the Crossbreed and Mongrel Club, founded in 1994. “Now it’s Goldendoodles, Jackadoodles and Cockadoodles.”

Holly Ralph, 12, is a member of the Young Kennel Club and is showing her skateboarding labradoodle, a roguish dusty-black creature with highlights in her beard. “Scruffts is the most serious thing we’ve done,” says Holly. Roxy’s vet bills are lower than for the family’s two pedigree dogs, which is true generally of mongrels and crossbreds. “It’s called hybrid vigour in the world of genetics,” says Life pet adviser Dr Roger Mugford, the owner of a vigorous rangoon terrier. “Statistically mongrels are marginally healthier.”

They’re also brighter than many of their overbred cousins, or so scientists at Aberdeen University concluded earlier this year after testing both for spatial awareness and problem-solving abilities.

• The Scruffts 2009 heats begin in February and the final will be at Discover Dogs on Nov 15 (0870 606 6750; www.thekennelclub.org.uk ).

DOGGY DIRECTORY

• Crossbreed and mongrel puppies are much harder to find than pedigrees, particularly in southern England, because of campaigns to encourage responsible dog ownership. Many of the Scruffts finalists were rescue dogs. Try Dogs Trust, which has 17 re-homing centres nationwide (020 7837 0006; www.dogstrust.org.uk ).
• Dogpages.org.uk has links to more than 1000 rescue centres.
• Fashionable dogs are abandoned too; contact Labradoodle Rescue (01933 443007; www.labradoodlerescue.com ). To find a puppy, try the UK Labradoodle Association (0208123 8156; www.labradoodle.org.uk ) or the Labradoodle Club of Great Britain (www.labradoodleclub.co.uk ).
• The Crossbreed & Mongrel Club website has excellent advice on how to choose the right dog. It also runs its own competition, Scamps, with the grand final on Sept 20, 2009 (01522 751576; www.crossbreedandmongrel-club.org.uk).

CANINE GLOSSARY… A WHATADOODLE?

GOLDENDOODLE: golden retrieverand poodle

COCKAPOO: cocker spaniel and poodle

YORKIEDOODLE: (or Porkie): Yorkshire terrier and poodle

JACKADOODLE: Jack Russell and poodle

SPOODLE: springer spaniel and poodle

DOODLE: dachshund and poodle

CHI-POO: chihuahua and poodle

PEEKAPOO: pekinese and poodle

PEEK-A-POM: pekinese and Pomeranian

DORGI: dachshund and corgi

CHORKIE: chihuahua and Yorkshire terrier

PUGGLE: pug and beagle

DOLLIES: dalmation and border collie

WEIRDIE: West Highland terrier and bearded collie

SPANADOR: spaniel and labrador

SPRINGBATT: bassett and springer spaniel