About

Commander Biden, also known as Joe Biden's Dog, is one of two German Shepherds owned by United States President Joe Biden, whose reportedly aggressive behavior towards Secret Service agents and other individuals has attracted considerable media attention and online speculation, as well as memes and jokes referencing him. Commander's bizarre and unexpected behavior, particularly as a member of the First Family, has raised concerns about the White House as an environment for animals and pets.

Career

Commander was born on September 1st, 2021, and given to Joe Biden as a gift by his brother James. Prior to this, Biden owned at least two German Shepherds: one of them, Camp, died in June of 2021 and the other, Major, had been moved to Wilmington, Delaware after a series of biting incidents with Secret Service officers. The White House also has a cat named Willow.^[1]

Commander arrived as a puppy to replace Major and Camp, but by 2022 he began to display the same behavioral problems as Major. By September of 2023, there had been at least eleven biting incidents involving Commander, one of which landed an agent in the hospital in November of 2022. The Biden's attempted to put the dog under a new training regimen in the summer of 2023, but the situation appeared to worsen.

In September 2023, a series of reports emerged about Commander's odd behavior. White House sources shared with Politico that "among staff, there is an emerging belief that, in the eyes of Commander, they are off limits; that the dog only has an appetite for the Secret Service."^[3] Others said that "the White House is a crazy environment for a dog" and attributed Commander's bad behavior to the stress associated with living at an office and not seeing his people often enough.

On October 4th, 2023, it was announced that Commander had been removed from the White House due to his repeated biting incidents.^[9]

Online History

Like with Major's earlier biting incidents, speculation spread that Commander was biting Secret Service agents out of a protective instinct. Revelations about the Secret Service's Role in allegedly obstructing the January 6th investigation, by deleting phone records, as well as the unusual closeness of some agents to Donald Trump, led some left-leaning dog lovers to argue that Major and Commander clocked the Secret Service as a threat to the Biden family and acted accordingly.

For example, @lindyli connected Commander's biting to credible suspicions of the Secret Service, earning over 15,000 likes in a week on September 26th (seen below left).^[4] Others, like MSNBC anchor Bryan Tyler Johnson, highlighted Commander's friendly behavior towards humans, earning over 66,000 likes on October 2nd (seen below right).^[5]

On the other side of the aisle, Fox News accused the Bidens of not giving Commander enough structure, leading to behavioral problems (article repost from James Woods on X shown below).^[6]

Some memes also spread about Commander Biden biting people other than Secret Service agents, like the example (seen below) posted by user @BaSingSeUpdate on October 5th, which received nearly 200 likes in an hour.^[10]

False "Clicking" Story

On October 2nd, the X account @PopulismUpdates shared a doctored screenshot of the Politico article, which seemed to include two paragraphs about Commander Biden making a strange "clicking" noise while wandering the White House halls at night (seen below, left).^[7] The screenshot garnered considerable attention and memes, such as from who compared it to Game of Thrones. (seen below, right).^[8]

External References