Guess who just got back today? Them wild-eyed boys that’d been away — Champ and Major — have returned to the White House two weeks after the pair of presidential German shepherds were exiled to Delaware after a “biting incident” involving Major and a Secret Service member.
On Wednesday, First Lady Jill Biden’s press secretary Michael LaRosa confirmed to CNN that the two dogs were back in the White House, after they had been sent to the family home in Wilmington on March 9. On that fateful Tuesday, Major “was surprised by an unfamiliar person and reacted in a way that resulted in a minor injury to the individual,” according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki. She added that the dogs were scheduled to return to Delaware anyway, due to Biden’s visit that week to military bases on the West Coast. While in Delaware, Major, who is three years old, worked with a trainer to fix his behavior and ensure the future security of Secret Service staff.
President Biden defended Major after the bite, which did not break the skin: “You turn a corner, and there’s two people you don’t know at all,” he told ABC News. He also offered a number meant to support the younger of his two dogs — “85 percent of the people [in the White House] love him” — but opened the question of whether or not at least one in ten White House staffers were afraid of his German shepherd, who was also involved in a roughhousing incident in November, in which Biden suffered a hairline fracture to his foot.
