The Biden White House has applied an 11-bite rule to Biden’s dog Commander. After a spree of biting incidents that victimized Secret Service officers and agents over the past few months, Commander has been exiled. The most recent such incident took last week when Commander bit a Secret Service officer.

Elizabeth Alexander is Dr. Jill Biden’s communications director. Alexander has discreetly announced that the dog is no longer living at the White House. Commander is now residing at an undisclosed location while the best minds in the White House daycare operation seek a solution.

Alexander put it somewhat circuitously in a statement quoted by the New York Times: “Commander is not presently on the White House campus while next steps are evaluated.” In her statement, Alexander said the president and the first lady “care deeply about the safety of those who work at the White House and those who protect them every day.”

If it took at least eleven bites for Commander to be exiled, the facts of the case belie Alexander’s statement, or suggest that the Bidens’ “deep care” leaves a lot of latitude for injury to third-parties. Indeed, CNN reports that Commander has bitten residence staff and White House workers in incidents not counted among the 11 involving the Secret Service.

Alexander’s statement came hours after yesterday’s White House briefing (transcript here). One of the reporters noted that some new pictures of Commander Biden [?] biting a staffer again.” The reporter wondered “[h]ow many times has that dog bitten the Bidens[.]” That doesn’t seem like the pertinent question, but she avoided it in any event.

KJP referred the reporter to Dr. Jill’s office for a response. This incident involved White House groundskeeper Dale Haney, an employee whose service goes back to the Nixon administration. Haney was “playing” with the cur. The incident was photographed by a tourist and shared with — who else? — the Daily Mail, which has published the tourist’s photographs along with its story.

The Independent’s story on the most recent incident (linked in the first paragraph above) observes that “Commander arrived at the White House in 2021 and has been wreaking havoc since.” You can see why Joe Biden and the dog have bonded. They have a lot in common.