Former President Joe Biden and Jill Biden have adopted two black Labrador mix puppies from a small Tennessee rescue organization, a decision that arrives with a well-documented backstory of canine chaos at the White House, where Biden's previous dogs attacked Secret Service agents and staff so frequently that at least two victims required hospital treatment.
Rescue DOG, a pet sanctuary based in Mountain City, Tennessee, announced the adoption on its Facebook page on Wednesday, posting a photo of the former president and first lady posing with the new pups and their cat, Willow.
The announcement drew immediate attention, not because anyone begrudges a retired couple a pair of puppies, but because the Biden family's track record with dogs left a trail of injury reports, rehomed animals, and Secret Service personnel who paid the price for their boss's inability to manage his pets.
Rescue DOG wrote that the two Johnson County puppies "were adopted together yesterday by the Biden family." The post added that the dogs would "not sit still for the photo shoot."
"We are thrilled for these two pups who were once abandoned on the mountain."
Melissa Gentry, who runs Rescue DOG, told the Mountain City newspaper The Tomahawk that she was stunned when she learned who had taken the animals. The call came from a partner rescue group in Delaware, where Jill Biden and her son, identified by the New York Post as presumably stepson Hunter Biden, first met the puppies during a visit.
Gentry described the moment to The Tomahawk:
"The group that we transport with called us and said, 'Are you sitting down,' and I said, 'No, but what have I done.' They said, 'You won't believe who just adopted two of your puppies.'"
Her reaction, she said, was disbelief.
"And my first thing I did was started laughing because I thought she was joking... it just blew my mind."
Biden's office did not immediately respond to the Post's request for comment.
The feel-good rescue story sits against a grim backdrop. Biden owned two German shepherds during his presidency, and both had to be removed from the White House after repeated attacks on the people tasked with protecting the president.
Commander, the more recent of the two, was given away in February 2023 after what the Post described as dozens of attacks on Secret Service agents and other White House personnel. At least two of those incidents were severe enough that the victims had to be taken to a hospital. The attacks occurred at both the White House and Biden's beach home in Delaware.
Commander's predecessor, Major, was rehomed in 2021 after also attacking personnel. Two dogs. Two removals. The same pattern.
At the time, the biting incidents drew scrutiny not just for the injuries themselves but for the way the Biden White House handled disclosure. The full scope of Commander's attacks emerged only gradually, with reporting eventually revealing the scale, dozens of incidents, that the administration had not been eager to publicize. Secret Service agents, whose job already involves taking a bullet for the president, were left dealing with dog bites that in some cases sent them to the emergency room.
The adoption also puts a minor spotlight back on Hunter Biden, who reportedly accompanied Jill Biden to meet the puppies at the Delaware rescue partner. The former president's son has been the subject of intense media and legal scrutiny for years, including questions about how major news organizations handled the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 campaign.
Jill Biden, meanwhile, has remained in the public eye since leaving the White House. She has signaled plans for a memoir that promises to "set the record straight" on the Biden presidency and the family's exit from the 2024 race. Separately, her ex-husband, William Stevenson, has made headlines of his own, first when police investigated a mysterious death at his Delaware home, and later when he was charged with murder.
None of that, of course, has anything to do with two Labrador mix puppies from Johnson County, Tennessee. But the Biden name carries its own gravitational pull, and every new chapter, even a soft one, gets read against the chapters that came before.
The details of how the adoption came together remain thin. The puppies' names have not been disclosed. The exact date of the adoption is unclear, though Rescue DOG's post referred to "yesterday," placing it the day before Wednesday's announcement. The specific Delaware rescue partner that facilitated the meeting has not been identified publicly.
Gentry's account suggests the process moved through normal channels, a transport network connecting Tennessee rescues with adoption events in the mid-Atlantic, and that Rescue DOG had no idea who was on the other end until after the fact. That tracks with how small rescue organizations typically operate: they place animals through partner groups and learn the adopter's identity only afterward, if at all.
For a Mountain City sanctuary, landing the former president as an adopter is the kind of publicity money can't buy. For the Biden family, the optics are warmer than anything involving their last two dogs.
There is nothing wrong with adopting rescue puppies. Millions of Americans do it every year, and the dogs from Johnson County deserve a good home as much as any other.
But the Biden dog saga was never really about the dogs. It was about accountability, the same accountability that seemed perpetually elusive across the Biden White House. When Commander bit Secret Service agents dozens of times and sent at least two to the hospital, the public learned about it in fragments, long after the pattern was established. The question was never whether the president loved his pets. It was whether anyone around him was willing to say, plainly and early, that a problem existed and people were getting hurt.
Major was rehomed in 2021. Commander followed in February 2023. Both times, the White House treated the situation as a private family matter rather than a workplace safety issue for federal employees who had no choice but to be in proximity to the animals.
Now there are two new puppies in the Biden household. The Secret Service no longer has to worry about them. The Bidens are private citizens, and whatever happens next is between them and their veterinarian.
Still, it takes a certain kind of confidence to go back to the pet store, figuratively speaking, after the record Joe Biden's dogs left behind. Then again, confidence without accountability was always the brand.