A good boy again: President Joe Biden's dog Major will return to the White House

The Bidens adopted a 10-month-old German Shepherd named Major in 2018. Photo / AP

Major breaking news: President Joe Biden's wayward pup is no longer in the doghouse.

Biden, in an interview that aired this week, said that his dog Major, who had been involved in a biting incident at the White House, was "a sweet dog". He explained the biting by saying that the dog had "turned a corner, there's two people he doesn't know at all, you know, and they move and he moves to protect".

Biden added that "85 per cent of the people there love him". Major, a 3-year-old rescue dog, and Champ, who is 12, were moved to the Bidens' Delaware home after the incident, but the president said they would return to the White House.

The president said "the dog's being trained now" in Delaware but disputed the idea that the pup was sent away after the incident. He said the dogs went to Wilmington because the first couple was going to be out of town.

"He was going home," Biden said. "I didn't banish him to home. Jill was going to be away for four days. I was going to be away for two, so we took him home."

The dogs are the first pets to call the White House home since President Barack Obama departed in early 2017 with his pups Bo and Sunny. President Donald Trump did not have any pets.

The dogs' arrival marked the comeback of a long tradition of presidential families bringing their pets to live with them in the White House.

Champ has been part of the Biden family for more than 10 years, since December 2008, just weeks after Joe became Barack Obama's vice president-elect.

The President, the First Lady and their grandchildren have returned from a trip to Delaware. Photo / AP

Shelter dog Major joined the family more recently after being adopted in November 2018, months before Biden announced his run for presidency in the 2020 election.

Major is the first shelter dog to move into the White House. The Delaware Humane Association, where he was adopted from, hosted a virtual "indoguration party" for Major.

But he's not the first rescue dog to live at the White House. Former president Lyndon B Johnson's daughter Luci adopted a rescue pup named Yuki who'd been abandoned by his owner at a Texas petrol station.

And former president Bill Clinton's family cat Socks was also a rescue pet.

- Additional reporting, NZ Herald