Washington: First dog Bo is a "kind of crazy" puppy who likes to chew on people's feet, Michelle Obama told children visiting the White House on Thursday.
The first lady is spending a lot of time walking and training the 6-month-old Portuguese water dog who became a member of President Barack Obama's family last week.
An energetic breed, Bo plays well into the night, as he did on Wednesday.
"It was like 10 o'clock. Everybody was asleep and we hear all this barking and jumping around," Mrs. Obama said. "The president and I came out and we thought somebody was out there. And it was just Bo. He was playing with his ball. And it was like there was another person in the house.
"He's kind of crazy, but he's still a puppy. So he likes to play a lot," she said.
The dog, unveiled last week after months of speculation, was a gift to Obama daughters Malia and Sasha.
"He loves to chew on people's feet," Mrs Obama divulged to more than 100 children invited to a program marking the annual Take Your Child to Work Day.
Dozens of executive branch employees brought their children and grandchildren to the White House on to see where their parents work and what they do there. Vice President Joe Biden's granddaughter, Maisy, 8, was among them.
In a question-and-answer session with the first lady, several students wanted to know about Bo.
Asked what she does with her free time, Mrs Obama said she doesn't get much of it.
"Well, right now I'm taking care of this puppy. So I'm doing a lot of dog walking and dog training," she said.
Another youngster asked what would she do if Bo ran away.
"I would be very sad, first of all but ... he has (dog) tags, and hopefully someone would find him and bring him back," Mrs Obama said.
She said it would be hard for Bo to get off the South Lawn, one of the places he is taken for walks and to play, because it is gated. But if he were to get out, she said, lots of people would try to track him down.
"I think everyone at the White House would probably help go out and find him," she said. "That's why we're working on training him, so that he doesn't run away and he listens when we call him. And so far he's doing OK, so we hope we don't have that problem."
The first lady also revealed that she and her staff like to sneak out to eat at fun places.
"Every now and then I have this thing that I like to do with some of my staff members, and we sneak out, without telling anybody, and we go and test out all the fun places to eat in D C," Mrs Obama said.
"I went to Five Guys and nobody knew it," she said, naming a popular chain of hamburger restaurants. "It was good."
Mrs Obama didn't mean that she sneaks out of the White House without the Secret Service agents who protect her, but that she sometimes goes out without reporters following her, an aide said.
She said would pick being first lady if she had to choose from any job in the White House.
"I think I have the best job in the White House. I don't have to deal with the hard problems every day," Mrs Obama said. "I have some problems that I have to deal with, but I get to do the fun stuff."
"Because I don't get paid, I get to do whatever I want to do," she said.
She likes eating food prepared by the kitchen staff. "I don't miss cooking. I'm just fine with other people cooking," she said in a tone that made the children laugh. "Their food is really good."
Her least favorite thing to do at the White House? Running on the treadmill.
"Everything that I do here is really pretty worthwhile, even if it's hard," said Mrs. Obama, who gets up early to work out in an upstairs gym.
"Maybe it's running on the treadmill ... sometimes I don't like to do that."
Mrs Obama quipped later on Thursday about the kids being a tough audience.
"They asked me a ton of questions. They were hard," she said. "I think that was my first official press conference."
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