Biden’s Dog, Commander, Joins Long List of Mischievous White House Pets

It’s a short ride to the White House in the doghouse .

Commander the latest presidential pet to make headlines for its biting behavior, follows in the footsteps of many four-legged residents banished from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The two-year-old German Shepherd who has a habit of biting Secret Service agents.”is not currently on the White House campus “, the White House said on Thursday. The Secret Service does not have a complete accounting of incidents, an agency spokesperson said. The commander has been removed from his position while the family evaluates next steps.

The Bidens’ other dog, Major also a German Shepherd, was sent to Delaware in 2021 for his own biting issues.

President Joe Biden and the first lady Jill Biden “remain grateful for the patience and support of the United States Secret Service and everyone involved, as they continue to seek solutions » according to Elizabeth Alexander, director of communications for the first lady.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to say where the commander had been taken.

Jean-Pierre assured that the dog had never bitten her. “I saw the commander several times. I was never worried “, he stressed.

For all the joy presidential pets have brought to White House families, They also created their share of drama.

During Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, from 1901 to 1909, the White House was home to six children and a menagerie of pets, including one hyena A Lion cub and one badger who, according to the president’s son, never bit the face, only the legs.

The badger was introduced to Roosevelt during a presidential speech, according to Andrew Hager, resident historian at the Presidential Pet Museum.

“The badger bit Roosevelt once, but he thought it was funny ” Hager said. “But in the end he had to go to a zoo.”

Roosevelt also had a dog, Rock , who killed four squirrels, which distressed the family. Pete made a name for himself biting and chasing White House staff, police officers and visiting dignitaries.

Pete chased a French ambassador and tore his pants, Hager said. This landed him a trip to a farm in Virginia to retrain. When Pete returned, he chased a naval officer. This led to him being permanently relocated to the family estate at Sagamore Hill in New York.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s most famous dog, Fala was a Scottish terrier immortalized in a bronze statue located in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. American soldiers during World War II asked for FDR’s dog’s name as a password .

Roosevelt had other pets that didn’t behave as well, said Hager, who wrote: “All-American Dogs: A History of Presidential Pets from Every Era », published last year.

One of them was a German Shepherd, accidentally named Major , who tore the British prime minister’s pants while trying to bite him, Hager recalled. Another of Roosevelt’s dogs, this one belonging to his wife, bit a reporter on the nose during a White House press conference.

Dwight Eisenhower had a Weimaraner who was sent to his family’s farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, after urinating on a rug then worth $20,000, according to Hager.

Barney Bush the Scottish terrier who kept George W. Bush company at the White House, had a website, Barney.gov , available today in archived form. He appeared in First Family’s Christmas videos, although Jenna Bush Hager, Bush’s daughter, said Barney “was a real jerk.”

Barney was filmed in November 2008 biting the finger of a Reuters reporter who knelt down to pet the dog he was walking.

John F. Kennedy had ponies. Calvin Coolidge had a raccoon according to historian Andrew Hager, who is not related to the Bush family. Bill Clinton had a black and white cat named Socks, who was not very happy when the family later adopted a Chocolate Labrador named Buddy .

“Cats tend to act alone and don’t appear at press conferences ” Hager said. “It’s not that they don’t misbehave, it’s that it often goes unnoticed.”

In 2009, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy and his wife gave a water dog a six-month-old Portuguese to the Obama family as a companion Malia and Sacha , then the girls who grew up in the White House. That dog, Bo, wasn’t a problem, but Hager said her second Portuguese water dog, Sunny, allegedly had an accident outside an office used by former President Barack Obama.

There are many other anecdotal stories about bad behavior by White House animals, but it’s not always possible to know whether they are true, he said.

“There are probably many more funny stories than bad ones. But good pets don’t make much news ” Hager said.