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GORE'S BEST FRIEND?
Inside the Beltway has learned that D.C. animal-control authorities recently received an emergency call from a guard posted at an entrance gate outside Vice President Al Gore's mansion on Massachusetts Avenue.
The officer, apparently with the uniformed division of the Secret Service, told the authorities that a sick dog had been lingering around the vice president's property, and could they please send somebody out to pick up the pooch.
The animal-control people arrived and quickly determined that the dog, a poodle, required immediate emergency veterinary care.
According to our source, who works in veterinary medicine, the dog was suffering from "maggot infestation of the muscles, resulting from an open, untreated wound."
The dog, it turned out, belongs to the family of Vice President Al Gore.
The dog was transported to Friendship Animal Hospital in the District, a 24-hour facility that provides emergency care under director Dr. Peter Glassman.
"No, I have no comment," Dr. Glassman said when we contacted him yesterday.
Earlier, an employee in Dr. Glassman's office said the staff was under "strict order" not to discuss the case.
"I told my staff not to comment on anything that goes on here," Dr. Glassman said when we repeated the charge.
A D.C. animal-control official also confirmed our story earlier this week but said that agency is also "under a gag order." The employee said any official comment would have to come from Mary Healey, executive director of the Washington Humane Society.
Reached yesterday, Ms. Healey confirmed: "We had received a call to pick up a dog in the vicinity of the vice presidential property and we responded to the call. We located the dog; I believe it was a poodle . . . named Coconut. The dog was apparently injured in some way.
"Our normal procedure . . . is to transport such an animal to Friendship Animal Hospital, and that was the end of the road for us."
Ms. Healey said she didn't believe Coconut carried a name tag, but she confirmed that authorities were able to determine at the scene that the dog did have an owner and was not a stray.
Our initial source said the guard who reported the dog's condition to authorities "claims not to have realized the dog belonged to the Gores, but the animal-control people think he was just trying to get the suffering animal some help without jeopardizing his job."
Tipper Gore, speaking yesterday afternoon through spokeswoman Sally Aman, said: "What happened is we've been having construction on the house and Coconut got out, and was missing for a couple of days. It's an amazing dog. She's 16 years old. It had been outside the grounds and found its way home, and that's when it was discovered."
She said the dog, after its surgery, was nursed back to health by the Gore children.
It could not be determined whether the Gores had reported the dog missing.
