Washington: US President Joe Biden’s younger dog Major this week was involved in his second biting incident of the month, the White House said.
The dog nipped someone while on a walk on Monday, Michael LaRosa, press secretary to first lady Jill Biden, said on Tuesday (US time), adding that the dog was still adjusting to his new surroundings.
Joe Biden with his German shepherd Major, in Wilmington, Delaware, in a 2018 file picture.Credit:AP
The individual was seen by the White House Medical Unit out of an abundance of caution and returned to work without injury, LaRosa said.
The dog had been seen by reporters on a walk around the White House South Lawn before the President and first lady travelled to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial early on Monday evening.
The German shepherd returned to the White House only last week, along with his sibling Champ, after causing a minor injury to an employee of the US Secret Service on March 8.
After that incident, the President said Major was “a sweet dog”. In an interview with ABC News in the US, Biden explained the biting by saying that the dog had “turned a corner; there’s two people he doesn’t know at all, you know, and they move, and [he] moves to protect”.
Biden added at the time that “85 per cent of the people there love him”.
Major, a three-year-old rescue dog, and Champ, who is 12, were moved to the Bidens’ Delaware home after the incident.
The President said Major was being trained in Delaware but disputed the idea that the pup had been sent away after the incident. He said the dogs went to Wilmington because the first couple were going to be out of town.
“He was going home,” Biden said. “I didn’t banish him to home. Jill was going to be away for four days. I was going to be away for two, so we took him home.”
The dogs met the Bidens two weekends ago at Camp David in Maryland and came back to Washington on March 21. Last week, one of the two German shepherds waited on the balcony of the White House as Marine One landed on the South Lawn, having ferried the President back from a speech in Columbus, Ohio.
“The dogs will come and go and it will not be uncommon for them to head back to Delaware on occasion as the President and first lady often do as well,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
Major burst onto the national scene late last year after Biden broke a bone in his right foot when he slipped while playing with the dog at their home.
This week’s biting incident was first reported by CNN.
AP
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