Presidential Dogs… The Bite Is Worse Than The Bark!

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214 – February, 2024

By Amy Fernandez

Yes, the current president’s dog is a biter. Every day the news brings a brand new political scandal of some type. Remember when politicians were boring? Yeah, that idea seems pretty nice nowadays. Anyway, this news was not boring. Apparently, a FOI request yielded a string of biting incidents involving the presidential German Shepherd, Commander. You might recall that Biden’s other German Shepherd, Major, was also known for a less than personable approach to White House life.

Predictably, everyone has an opinion regarding the cause and the solution… blah blah blah. From my perspective, the only surprising thing about it was the fact that it made news. Because, from a historical vantage point, presidential pets have a long and illustrious history of reprehensible behavior.

Very few of America’s presidents have arrived dogless, and very often they have moved in with an entire menagerie of pets. As Calvin Coolidge explained way back in 1923, “Any man who does not like dogs and want them about does not deserve to be in the White House.” Okay, perhaps his presidency was not a standout, but who can argue with that sentiment?

The thing is that for most of American history, presidential dogs were just pets. A few were well-mannered standouts, amd others not so much. In reality most of them fell into the latter category. Keep in mind that the current ideal of holding all dogs to a high behavioral standard is a very recent twist in the dog/owner social dynamic. Allowing dogs into the house was traditionally regarded as eccentric. And the idea of actually training them to behave politely in social situations? Well, that didn’t take hold until after World War II. Prior to that, the general attitude was to assume that dogs will bite and do a great deal of other regrettable stuff unless proven otherwise.

Click here to read the complete article
214 – February, 2024

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Posted by AnthonyA on Feb 21 2024. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.