Colons in XPath

[Genimuse]

Is there a way to escape or otherwise work with colons in element names under XPath? The XML looks like this:

<AB:Animal>
  <AB:Pet>
    Dog
  </AB:Pet>
</AB:Animal>

I'd like to access ABet, but "//ABet" will always fail.

Sorry, XPath newbie, this may be obvious.

 

[Genimuse]

I realize now that I need to specify a namespace in order to ignore the AB:. Not sure how to specify a local file as the namespace in VB.net, but at least I'm on the track.