Ran originally in Sunday, March 14, 2021 editions of Louisiana’s Gannett Newspapers…

Stop me if you’ve heard this one…

Two dogs just got kicked out of the White House. And no, we are not talking about either the most recent or current President and First Lady.

Watch it. Been a long year; y’all play nice.

Besides, no political jokes and very little political interest here. What I know about politics you could put in a terrier’s ear and have room left over for a Chihuahua and a Pomeranian.

But I do know about dogs, and the news out of Washington this week hit me right in the ol’ milk bones. We don’t like it when dogs get the short end of the stick.

If you haven’t heard, then good: I’d rather you hear it from me than off the streets. Might sting a bit.

The current president, Joe Biden, and his wife Dr. Jill moved in to the digs on Pennsylvania Avenue a few weeks ago. 1600 is the street address, if memory serves. Huge white house with a big lawn. Can’t miss it.

When they moved in, so did Major and Champ, the two German Shepherds owned by the First Couple. Keep in mind that these two had been living the quiet life in a Delaware mansion, minding their own doggone business in an environment of only mild activity. The Bidens’ Delaware home is huge but hardly the Playboy Mansion concerning visitors and goings-on and whatnot. Major and Champ ruled the roost with room to roam, and—here’s where any similarity to the Playboy Mansion might be on target—treats were cheap and easy.

Then overnight the two innocent pets were relocated to the most recognizable house in the world, one where people are quick-stepping this way and that 24/7—at least if what I’ve seen on The West Wing is reasonably true.

I doubt the Bidens had told their dogs precisely what winning the presidential election might entail.

Joe and Jill: “Guys, we’re running for president.”

Major, only 3: “Does that mean we get to meet some French Shepherds and maybe some Spanish Shepherds?”

Champ, a much wiser 13-year-old: “If it means more dog bones, I’m in. Big time.”

Oh goodness. The Big Prize glitters and we think it’s gold but … Well…

What the dogs didn’t know was that they wouldn’t be able to play catch or go do No. 1 or even try to catch some sack time without running into an ambassador or a senator or a Secretary of the Interior, Exterior, or Posterior.

So this week, Major—again, a perky 3 and adopted from an animal shelter in 2019—caved. The networks and wire services reported that he took a nip at a Secret Service agent’s hand. The bite did not draw blood, and no one reported whether or not the Secret Service agent’s hand might have been holding some bacon or a presidential pastry.

So Major has been sent back to Delaware for more training. Champ, guilty of nothing except being old and past the nipping stage, was sent with him. But not before at least one news channel unloaded on his head shot and remarked the elderly canine looked “old, ugly, and unkempt.”

True, he’s no Rex (the Reagans’ King Charles Spaniel) or Millie (remember Barbara Bush’s spaniel that gave birth to six pups in the White House?) or Buddy, the Clintons’ adorable chocolate lab puppy. In all honesty, Champ looks like a cross between an ungroomed Lassie and an ungroomed William Howard Taft.

But hey, he’s 13 and it’s been a long campaign. Besides, you don’t kick an old dog when he’s down. I bet if Champ, certainly a handsome shepherd in his day, retired from public life tomorrow, it would not be soon enough for him. He’s learned what some of us knew already, that politics can be dog-eat-dog.

The dogs’ trainer told TMZ LIVE that the pair suffered from “culture shock” and that he’d retrain them so they can get back to the Bidens and to the White House. Although if you see a picture of the trainer, who looks to be a bodybuilding, high-voltage maniac, this might be the reason Major is a bit too amped up in the first place.

Naturally all this takes place the week of the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring a pandemic. That was March 11, 2020. The time has not exactly flown. Like Major and Champ, we were put in time out, put in the dog house.

It’s been ruff.

But here’s to the hope of happy days ahead. And here’s to the suggestion this week from Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards (his Golden Retriever is Bandit) that Sunday be a day of prayer to commemorate the lives lost, both to the virus and to circumstances surrounding the virus.

“It’s been a year of great loss and heartbreak,” the governor said this week.

Amen. But with prayer and with signs of optimism all around, maybe soon all us dogs, both young and old, can get back to having our days.

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