New Mexico might be having a meltdown over Gov. Bill Richardson’s loss of the commerce secretary nomination, but President-elect Barack Obama thinks it’s a joking matter.

Obama’s final words of a 40-minute interview with George Stephanopoulos on the Sunday morning talk-show “This Week” compared the search for a commerce secretary to his family’s search for a pet dog.

Stephanopoulos asked Obama what kind of dog the Obama family was going to get, and Obama rounded up his reply by saying that  the decision had been “tougher than finding a commerce secretary.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: What kind of a dog are we getting and when are we getting it?

OBAMA: The — they seem to have narrowed it down to a labradoodle or a Portuguese water hound.

STEPHANOPOULOS: A medium-sized.

OBAMA: Medium-sized dog, and so, we’re now going to start looking at shelters to see when one of those dogs might come up.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you’re closing in on it?

OBAMA: We’re closing in on it. This has been tougher than finding a commerce secretary.