It’s hard to forget how the media was so committed to negative coverage of Trump that they even criticized him for not getting a family dog upon entering the White House. What was wrong with him? Doesn’t he like dogs? Who doesn’t like dogs? Impeach! Impeach!
“I wouldn’t mind having one honestly but I don’t have any time.,” Trump said in 2019. “How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn. … It’s sort of not, I don’t feel it. It feels a little phony to me.”
As a dog owner, I got it. So much fuss is made about White House pets. But, as much these pets give the president of the United States the opportunity for some humanizing media coverage, we all know that once they get inside the White House and the cameras are no longer on them, no one in the First Family is caring for that dog.
But that doesn’t mean the media don’t repeatedly feed into this obsession with “First Pets.” I was only twelve when Bill Clinton was elected, but I still remember the media obsessing about Chelsea Clinton’s cat Socks. During Clinton’s second term, the First Family got a chocolate lab named Buddy. I also remember hearing about George W. Bush’s dogs; later, the media covered when Barack Obama got a dog that I’m sure he had very little to do with once the media wasn’t watching. Of course, Trump’s decision not to get a dog was scandalous, even though it was the right decision not to get a dog just for the cameras.
Naturally, the media was very excited when dogs made their triumphant return to the White House with Joe Biden—probably the only positive thing that has happened during his presidency.
But, one of Joe Biden’s dogs, Champ, sadly died, and another, Major, became highly controversial because of his aggressive behavior. In March, it was reported that Major was involved in a biting incident. Several months later, we discovered that the White House had actually covered up how many people Major had actually bitten.
With Biden’s approval ratings still underwater and showing no signs of returning to positive territory, the Biden family is now resorting to extreme measures: they got a new puppy.
“Meet the newest Biden,” Joe Biden tweeted Monday evening, along with a short pre-packaged video of the Bidens doing dog owner things with their new four-legged family member, Commander.
Meet the newest Biden. pic.twitter.com/JHAbH53iRk
— President Biden (@POTUS) December 20, 2021
But that’s not all. It looks like Major won’t be returning to the White House. “After consulting with dog trainers, animal behaviorists, and veterinarians, the first family has decided to follow the experts’ collective recommendation that it would be safest for Major to live in a quieter environment with family friends,” Jill Biden’s press secretary told CNN. Major hasn’t been seen at the White House for some time now, as he’d been undergoing training, which apparently wasn’t enough to make him acclimate to living in the White House.
So, the Bidens ditched Major in favor of a new puppy. I guess Major, by not being in the White House, failed to live up to his role as a trophy dog for the media to fawn over. So now, we’ll have Commander, who, by being a puppy, will be even better at giving Biden some touching moments in front of the cameras before White House aides handle the cleaning up of the dog poop and all the other aspects of pet ownership that the Bidens won’t be doing.
Putting Major in care of another family may have been the right thing to do, but does the White House really think a puppy will boost Biden’s poll numbers? But we all know that neither Joe nor Jill will be spending much time with this puppy when the media isn’t watching.
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