“Dog Bites Man,” in journalism lore, is a boring headline a few predictable occasion—a non-news story that ought to by no means be written, not to mention learn. But what if the canine in query belongs to the president of the United States? And what if the president’s canine bites not one man, however many?
Joe and Jill Biden’s two-year-old German shepherd, Commander, is that canine. After the U.S. Secret Service confirmed late final month that Commander had been involved in 11 “biting incidents” on the White House, CNN reported this week that the canine had really been even more prolific together with his canines, biting a number of White House staffers. At some level up to now two weeks, Commander was sent away.
“The President and First Lady care deeply about the safety of those who work at the White House and those who protect them every day,” Elizabeth Alexander, the communications director for the primary girl, stated in an announcement to CNN. Commander, she added, “is not presently on the White House campus while next steps are evaluated.” Woof.
The entire state of affairs has been traumatic. For the chew victims, in fact—at the least one in all whom went to the hospital for therapy—but additionally for Commander, who now has to go away the one household he’s ever recognized. And for the Biden household: Not three full years into his administration, the president and the primary girl have needed to say goodbye to not one, however two household dogs. (The Bidens’ older canine, Major, was similarly expelled in 2021 for his personal biting proclivity.)
Banishing the Bidens’ canine is not only a matter of OSHA compliance. It’s political too.
The flurry of actually newsworthy dog-bites-man tales has been tough for the president, who comes off as each an unfeeling boss and a negligent canine proprietor. In the vortex of detrimental press—impeachment, Hunter Biden’s authorized issues, inflation, dipping approval rankings—Commander’s unhealthy habits is virtually the one detrimental information story that Biden can try to regulate.
The Commander drama has been building towards a climax for months. Major bit a Secret Service agent shortly after transferring into the White House, in 2021, and was subsequently despatched to stay with household mates in Delaware—not a euphemism, we’re informed. Commander, the younger of the 2, has been biting folks for months. In July, reports emerged that the canine had attacked or bitten members of the Secret Service a number of instances from final October to January of this yr. (This sample added harm to insult in an already tense relationship between the Biden administration and the Secret Service, many of whom are reportedly fans of Donald Trump.)
As if that state of affairs was not fraught sufficient, we now know that Commander has chomped on extra legs and arms than was beforehand reported, together with on various White House government staffers’. Asked the place the canine was taken, Alexander, the East Wing spokesperson, declined to remark instantly. She additionally didn’t touch upon how the Biden household is feeling, although that’s simple to guess: unhappy, type of embarrassed, in all probability aggravated by all of the canine protection when Republicans in Congress are engaged in their very own very public brawling.
More than something, although, I ponder how Commander feels—and whether or not issues might need turned out higher if extra consideration had been given to that query.
The lifetime of a president’s canine will be disturbing. The White House is a working workplace and a public museum in addition to a home, with multitudes of individuals coming out and in on a regular basis. Even on a traditional day, the scene could be a chaotic sensory overload for a canine: Rotating members of the Secret Service element, uniformed and never, stand outdoors each room, earpieces in, eyes darting, faces unsmiling; aides fly by doorways with various levels of pleasure and alarm, waving papers. And the primary household is at all times leaving on journeys and official visits; typically they bring about the canine; different instances they depart him behind within the care of a butler or an working engineer, who’s on-site across the clock.
All of that is troublesome for a human to regulate to, not to mention a canine with restricted English comprehension who can’t perceive that his proprietor is crucial person within the Western world.
Presidential pets at all times take a while to acclimate, in line with Jennifer Pickens, the creator of Pets at the White House. Eventually, most White House dogs have been in a position to adapt to the schedule of nights within the first household’s residence, and days with the run of the building (or components of it). They may spend time sleeping within the chief usher’s workplace or ready for the president within the Outer Oval. They’ll go on common walks by the 18-acre White House campus with Dale Haney, who has been the groundskeeper and unofficial presidential canine handler since he first tended to Richard Nixon’s Irish setter, King Timahoe. During the George W. Bush administration, the president’s squat little Scottish terrier, Barney, preferred to comply with the pastry chef round within the basement hallways, licking powdered sugar from his footwear, Pickens informed me. Bo and Sunny Obama, the forty fourth president’s Portuguese water dogs, had been accustomed to being paraded round for snuggles from youngsters visiting the White House.
But different dogs don’t settle in so simply—or they turn out to be irritated by the eye. After all, they don’t get to decide on to turn out to be a part of the primary household: In 1961, the Soviet chief Nikita Khrushchev gave the Kennedy household a fluffy white puppy named Pushinka, whose mom had been shot into house on Sputnik 5. Pushinka—who went on to have her personal puppies, which John F. Kennedy known as the “pupniks”—grew to become “a little nippy” later in life, according to Caroline Kennedy.
The adjustment to White House life has been a problem for a lot of presidential pooches. Ronald Reagan’s 65-pound Bouvier des Flandres, Lucky, was despatched again to the household’s Santa Barbara ranch after a number of months, as a result of she was deemed “a little too much for the Reagan White House,” Pickens stated. One of the Carter household mutts, JB—quick for Jet Black—used to snap on the maids and butlers, Gary Walters, a former chief usher, informed me. The canine nipped at Walters once in a while too: “We’d just say, ‘Oh, JB, shut up and go away.’” In 2008, Barney bit the finger of Jon Decker when the Reuters reporter reached out to pet him; Barney may very well be, as Jenna Bush put it later“a real jerk.”
I want I may inform Commander all of this—that dogs act like dogs, and typically like actual jerks, even after they stay within the White House.
Commander’s adjustment to White House life might have been more difficult than it was for different pets. Although German shepherds will be loyal and reliable companions, they should be diligently skilled, particularly throughout their adolescent months, Sue Kewley, a canine behaviorist who specializes within the breed, informed me. “I don’t think people realize how sensitive German shepherds can be,” she stated. They’re herding dogs, and “if you don’t give them a job to do, they’ll go self-employed.”
Young shepherds must be taught the best way to behave when a customer or stranger arrives—the best way to go to their “place” or seize a toy, one thing that desensitizes them to the fixed movement of our bodies coming and going. This seems to be the hole in Commander’s training. “He’s been allowed to make mistakes, which is a real shame,” Kewley stated. “But I don’t blame him. It’s not his fault.”
It in all probability didn’t should be this fashion, in different phrases. With higher coaching and extra consideration, Commander might need been in a position to keep within the White House. As with different presidential dogs, he may have been an emblem for the president, one thing joyful and candy for the American folks to latch on to. Instead, he’s turn out to be a office hazard, an unlucky headline, and now, sadly, an exile.
