In the latest occurrence, President Joe Biden’s dog, Commander, reportedly bit a Secret Service member, as confirmed by the agency on Tuesday. According to Steven Kopek, a spokesperson for the Secret Service, the incident involved a Secret Service Uniformed Division police officer who “encountered one of the first family’s pets and received a bite” around 8 p.m. on Monday.
“The officer was treated by medical personnel on complex,” Kopek noted, adding that the officer spoke with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on Tuesday and is doing alright, according to CNN.
Commander, the 2-year-old German Shepherd belonging to the first family, gained notoriety for biting shortly after joining the presidential household in December 2021.
Details revealed by the conservative watchdog organization Judicial Watch indicated that the dog had bitten seven individuals during a span of four months, starting from September 2022 and extending through January 2023. One Secret Service agent was even hospitalized due to one of these incidents, as reported by the New York Post.
The recent biting incident marks at least the 11th documented case involving Commander, occurring both at the White House and in Delaware. This incident has garnered strong reactions from some of President Biden’s most outspoken critics.
“The Biden family doesn’t care one whit about the danger this out-of-control dog poses!” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton exclaimed in a post to X.
“Are the Biden family’s Secret Service agents supposed to just accept being attacked by their disturbed dog as part of the job?” asked New York Post columnist Miranda Devine.
Elizabeth Alexander, the communications director for first lady Jill Biden, told The New York Times that the White House “can be a stressful environment for family pets” and the first family “continues to work on ways to help Commander handle the often unpredictable nature of the White House grounds.”
