WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - A New Zealand teenager faced legal action after he stole his own injured puppy from a clinic to save it from euthanasia when the family couldn't afford expensive surgery after it was hit by a car.

The story appears headed for a happy ending, however. The public rallied to the plight of Bronson Stewart and 5-month-old puppy Buck on Wednesday, raising money to save the dog by paying the bill, local media reported.

PHILADELPHIA - Police said a Philadelphia man poured rubbing alcohol on his family's puppy and set it on fire in front of his children.

Police and animal welfare officials said 33-year-old John Fleet III was arrested Friday after his children told a school counselor about the incident. He has been charged with animal cruelty.

George Bengal of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the children reported their father became enraged Thursday night when the dog nipped at them.

PHILADELPHIA-Police say a Philadelphia man poured rubbing alcohol on his family's puppy and set it on fire in front of his children.

Police and animal welfare officials say 33-year-old John Fleet III was arrested Friday after his children told a school counselor about the incident. He has been charged with animal cruelty.

George Bengal of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says the children reported their father became enraged Thursday night when the dog nipped at them.

Police operators thought someone was being hounded by a murderer when they heard whining on a 999 call.

Fears of at least a violent domestic increased when muffled voices were followed by a man barking: "Come out or else. I'm warning you."

But after the line went dead and the number was traced, worried officers found the "emergency" was the fault of a naughty puppy which had stolen its owners' telephone.

WASHINGTON - Michelle Obama is in full swoon over the newest addition to the First Family, but she's also learned what any dog owner with kids could have told her: when they promised to walk the dog, they lied.

The White House's newest resident is a bit of a liability, but he is just a puppy afterall.

"He likes to play a lot," Michelle Obama said of Bo, the First Family's 6-month-old Portuguese Water Dog, during a meet and greet for "Take Your Child to Work Day."

Some dogs have fleas. The Obamas' dog apparently has a foot fetish.

"Oh, he is a crazy dog," says First Lady Michelle Obama of their Portuguese water pup Bo, the new canine in chief.

President Keeps His Promise to Daughters

Bo moved into the White House yesterday, fulfilling a promise President Obama made last year to daughters Malia and Sasha that they could get a dog.

Bo is a 6-month-old Portuguese water dog, sometimes called a Portie or a PWD. Bo was a gift to the girls from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who is a fan of the breed and has a puppy from the same litter as Bo's. The breed is hypoallergenic, which means it's better for people who are allergic to dogs, and Malia Obama is allergic.

The puppy has already learned tricks, his trainer Dawn Sylvia says in the newest issue of Us Weekly, on stands tomorrow.

"He sits very well, he does down very well. He shakes, he rolls over," says the trainer, who has been working with him since March. "He knows his off command, which means don't touch. He understands wait."

Reporting from Washington -- The identity of the first puppy -- the one that the Washington press corps has been yelping about for months, the one President Obama has seemed to delight in dropping hints about -- leaked out Saturday.

President-elect Barack Obama said on ABC's "This Week" that he had narrowed down the puppy he was getting his daughters to two breeds: a Labradoodle and a Portuguese water dog.

According to the Portuguese Water Dog Club of America, the dogs are "great with children." The dogs date back to pre-Christian times; the first written description of a Portuguese Water Dog is a 1297 monk's report of a dying sailor brought out of the sea by a dog with a "black coat of rough hair, cut to the first rib and with a tuft on the tip of his tail." Long popular in Portugal, they were first imported to the U.S. in 1968.