Nemo, a black Lab/Griffon mix, was adopted from a shelter in August by France’s President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte. On Sunday, he thanked them by peeing on a fireplace in the Élysée Palace during a meeting between Macron and junior ministers Brune Poirson, Benjamin Griveaux, and Julien Denormandie.
Macron laughed about the incident with his guests, joking:
“You have triggered completely unusual behavior in my dog.”
Nemo, named after the captain in Jules Vernes’ Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, is far from the only First Dog to cause trouble for a president. Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s dogs reportedly caused thousands of euros worth of damage to furniture. Before that, President Jacques Chirac’s dog Sumo became so depressed after moving out of the presidential palace, he needed antidepressants and was sent to live in the countryside after biting Chirac.
In America, Bo and Sunny, former President Barack Obama’s Portuguese Water Dogs, were far from innocent and bit the occasional white house visitor.
(H/T: Newsweek)
