BY EDIE GROSS

Bo knows Fauquier County.

That's right. Before his well-publicized romp across the South Lawn with the first family two days after Easter, Bo Obama learned a thing or two at the Hume home of dog trainer Dawn Sylvia-Stasiewicz.

When the curly-haired pup with the tuxedo-like coat, then known as "Charlie," showed up at Sylvia-Stasiewicz's house in March, his future was uncertain.

His first home hadn't worked out, she was told, because the family's older dog hadn't taken to the frisky youngster.

Sylvia-Stasiewicz was already training one of Charlie's littermates, Cappy, the youngest of three Portuguese water dogs owned by Sen. Edward Kennedy and his wife, Vicki.

She was asked to evaluate Charlie to see if he'd be good for a family with kids.

The fact that the family in question was the one living in the big white house on Pennsylvania Avenue wasn't revealed until several weeks into the dog's training.

"I trained and lived with him as though he were one of my own," said Sylvia-Stasiewicz, 51, who occasionally walked him around the Warrenton Petco to gauge his response to other dogs.

"I put him around kids, got to know his temperament. He's sweet and cuddly and he pays attention to you," she said. "He's a very loving dog."

Her month with Charlie-turned-Bo was nostalgic. Sylvia-Stasiewicz, who has owned and worked with just about every breed of dog over the past two decades, had owned a "Portie" named Ebony in the '80s.

Ebony was especially loving with her three children, she said.

"There's practically not a picture of the kids without her there," she said. "She was good with everybody."

Bo was similarly good-natured, she said, and a quick study. Both he and brother Cappy were easily house-trained, she said.

"With both of those dogs, I had not one accident ever," she said. "It's been years since I had one like that--a bladder you would kill for."

She crate-trained Bo, taught him some basic commands and brought him along to the Merit Puppy Training class she teaches each week at the Jelleff Boys & Girls Club in Georgetown.

No one knew the playful pup was White House-bound, and he never put on airs, said Washington resident Jacqueline Eyl, whose beagle-German shepherd mix, Ruby, faithfully attended the class.

"She probably slobbered all over him," Eyl added.