Michelle Obama: Yes, I shop at Target (and Petco, too) [Video]

First Lady Michelle Obama said Wednesday that her recent trip to a D.C.-area Target store was hardly a rare occurrence -- and that sometimes she sneaks out of the White House with a canine companion.

“I do that more frequently than people realize,” Obama told NBC’s Al Roker on the “Today” show. “It’s amazing how people don’t recognize you. They don’t expect to see me at Starbucks or at Chipotle. ... I actually took Bo to Petco.”

Bo, of course, is the Obama family dog.

“The cashier asked me, ‘Oh, what kind of dog is that?’ I said a Portuguese water dog. He didn’t recognize us because he didn’t expect that we would be in Petco,” she said.

An Associated Press photographer snapped some photos of the first lady at a Target store in Alexandria, Va. Her office said at the time it does not comment on her personal activities, but that it was “not uncommon” for her to “slip out to run an errand, eat at a local restaurant or otherwise enjoy the city outside the White House gates.”

They also said the photographer “caught her” at the store, though some suspected it was a pre-arranged photo op. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy