Is Conan a good boy? Good girl?
After a series of back-and-forth corrections about the gender of the U.S. military’s hero dog—which President Trump honored in an impromptu award ceremony in the White House Rose Garden on Monday—the pup’s gender has finally and definitively been confirmed.
It’s a boy. For real this time.
ADVERTISEMENT
On Tuesday morning, a U.S. defense official told ABC News that Conan, who aided in the October operation that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is in fact a girl. Less than 30 minutes later, the reporter issued an update that two defense officials had contacted ABC News to say that Conan is indeed a “boy,” adding that one of the officials “triple checked.”
It also surfaced that the dog’s trainer, interviewed by the Dutch news organization RTL Nieuws shortly after the Baghdadi mission, referred to Conan as male.
Soon after Conan was presented with a certificate and medal by Trump—who repeatedly referred to the brave pup as a “he”—the White House issued a correction stating that Conan was actually female.
Standing alongside Vice President Mike Pence and the first lady at the Rose Garden ceremony, Trump used male pronouns to praise the dog, who was injured in the raid, and said Conan is “right now probably the world’s most famous dog. I don’t think I have to use the word probably.”
He also called the dog “brilliant, so smart,” a “ tough cookie” and “the ultimate fighter.”
White House Correspondent Hunter Walker issued a correction to the press pool in a tweet on Monday, reading, “Your pooler retracts the earlier comment that Conan was a very good boy. Conan is apparently a very good girl. Good girl, Conan.”
Two hours later, the White House issued a second correction that Conan was in fact male, an official said, meaning Trump had been right all along.
The back-and-forth about the actual sex of “world’s most famous,” who is trending on Twitter with his own hashtag, caused speculation as whether Trump officials had changed their account to make the president appear correct.
