President Biden’s German Shepherds are on time out at the family home in Delaware after one of them reportedly showed aggressive behavior toward White House Staff.
According to CNN, three-year-old Major was involved in a “biting incident” with a member of White House security. Per their sources, Major has been “known to display agitated behavior on multiple occasions, including jumping, barking, and ‘charging’ at staff and security.” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki didn’t offer any additional details when asked about the matter on Morning Joe on Tuesday, but emphasized that both Major and his older brother, 12-year-old Champ, are part of the Biden family and will eventually return to the White House.
The rescue dogs have been given free rein of the White House grounds since they’ve moved in, which might be a delight to the Biden family and dog lovers but perhaps less so to staffers getting jumped by an overly excited German Shepherd. Maybe Major just needs to go to doggie charm school and learn a few tricks of the trade. (President Biden shouldn’t bother taking Major to doggie Reiki, however, which I can confirm has done nothing to calm down Frankie, the very cute but very hyper dog of Jezebel’s Senior Politics Writer, Esther Wang.)
This is far from a political scandal. The behavior of a young rescue dog is slow-news-day fodder amidst a historic stimulus package, the covid-19 pandemic vaccine rollout, and the continued fallout from that Oprah interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. But try telling that to the people who run @first_dogs_usa, a social media brand that I can only describe as the biggest stans of Major and Champ on the internet.
Look, I don’t know who runs this account. I tried finding out a couple of months ago, but when I reached out, all I got in response was this: “We can’t share inpawrmation about our identities, mainly for safety reasons. Pawlieve it or not, we even received death threats for pawsting photos of our furry selves playing with a Trump chew toy a while back.” They did, however, confirm that they aren’t associated with the Biden administration or the creators of the children’s book From the Dog Shelter to the White House: The Story of Major Biden. They’re just some civilians who love the Biden family dogs and raising money for animal welfare organizations.
But their reputation apparently rides on that of their two favorite German Shepherds, so now first_dogs_usa is doing unsolicited PR for Major and Champ.
See “exhibit” 2 please: I woof like to remind everyone that when the news about dad @POTUS and the ankle fracture incident came out, details were not made clear and I was wrongfully pawccused in the beginning. I was innocent, as per my paw releases. Innocent then and now. – Major #DOTUS
I’m honestly too impressed by their commitment to dog-speak to snark.