The president’s new German shepherd has left one of the officers in the hospital, according to White House emails
US President Joe Biden’s dog bit seven people in a four-month period, including a Secret Service agent who was hospitalized with arm and leg injuries, according to internal emails obtained by conservative activists. The dog is the second of Biden’s canine companions to terrorize the White House.
The most serious incident took place last November, when the then one-year-old German shepherd – named ‘Commander’ – came down a flight of stairs and bit an agent who was sitting at the bottom with his arms folded. Commander bit the agent on his arm and his thigh, causing “a considerable amount of pain” and forcing the agent to shield himself with a steel cart as the dog “came after [him] again,” according to a Secret Service email published on Tuesday by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group.
The agent was sent to a local hospital by the White House physician’s office, and was taken off active duty for three days following the attack.
“What a joke… if it wasn’t their dog he would already have been put down,” a friend of the agent wrote to his injured colleague two days later, adding that the “freaking clown needs a muzzle.”
Biden was given Commander in December 2021, several months after his oldest German shepherd, Champ, died at 13. In the meantime, Biden’s other German shepherd, Major, was sent to the family home in Delaware for repeatedly biting Secret Service agents.
“This is a special sort of craziness and corruption where a president would allow his dog to repeatedly attack and bite Secret Service and White House personnel,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said on Tuesday.
After sending the agent to the hospital, Commander bit a further six people. He bit another officer on the leg a week later, broke the skin of an agent’s hand the following month, and bit a technician on the back at Biden’s Delaware home in January.
“Nearly every official in the room with me today spoke about specific incidents surrounding the First Family’s dog,” a Secret Service inspector wrote to his colleagues after a meeting in December.
All of the incidents reported by Judicial Watch took place between October 2022 and January of this year. It is unclear whether Commander attacked anyone else in the months beforehand or afterwards, but the dog continues to reside at the White House.
In an email to the Associated Press, First Lady Jill Biden’s communications director, Elizabeth Alexander, downplayed the incidents. The White House is “a unique and stressful environment” for pets, she wrote, adding that the Biden family is “working through ways to make this situation better for everyone.”
