The president and first lady's dog Major, a 3-year-old German shepherd, was the canine involved in the incident at the White House, NBC News chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander reported on TODAY Tuesday morning.

“When I spoke to him on the phone, he just wanted to make sure that his daughter was going to get her dogs back — her ‘babies,’ that’s what he called them,” Maria Mora, executive director of the Nassau County SPCA, told TODAY.