`First Canine' scoots off to beer bar

German police and border guards were breathing a sigh of relief last night after President Johannes Rau called off a three-day search for the country's "First Canine", his dog, Scooter.

The shaggy mongrel schnauzer, which hobnobbed with the master of his US counterpart, Buddy, when President Clinton visited Berlin last week, went missing from the presidential villa on Saturday.

Mr Rau's teenage children alerted the President's security staff, who sent local police and border guards on the trail of the missing dog, which has never strayed before.

"He is unusually obedient, goes for walks off the leash and is well trained. He is not a tramp," the President's spokeswoman insisted.

The President himself joined the search for Scooter, telephoning local animal homes to ask if they had seen the family pet.

It emerged yesterday that Scooter was found the very day he went missing by a young man who worked at a pub in the elegant suburb of Dahlem where the President and his family live.

"He was picked up by a bouncer at a beer bar and kept safe for two days. He was going to take him to an animal home tomorrow," a relieved Mr Rau said yesterday.

The young man, who first grasped Scooter's exalted status when he saw a report in yesterday's newspapers about the dog hunt, has been promised a reward by the President's delighted family.

Mr Rau's office claimed yesterday that the search for Scooter did not place any extra financial burden on the state, a touchy subject in Germany's scandal-plagued political atmosphere.

As for Scooter himself, the prodigal dog is likely to be granted a presidential pardon following his return home to his adoring master.

"As a dog he's a disaster, but as a human being, he's really marvellous," Mr Rau said.