Tim Walz petted a dog that wasn’t his—and the far-right absolutely lost it
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) adopted a dog named Scout after getting elected. Scout is a black labrador retriever and Walz frequently posts pictures of him on social media.
That should be the end of the story, but a post from a trip to the dog park sparked a fake controversy.
In 2022, Walz posted a photo of himself playing with a brown-and-white dog while at the dog park with Scout, dubbing it a "beautiful day" Scout enjoyed.
Some conservatives are now accusing Walz of not really having a dog, or of using a stunt dog—adding to an increasing amount of grievances Republicans have with Walz's claims about his past and family.
This morning, right-wing account The Feminist Misogynist tweeted two screenshots of Walz tweets: One that shows a photo of Walz and Scout and another that shows him with the brown-and-white dog.
"What the hell?" the X user The Feminist Misogynist tweeted.
The accusations are a result of how Walz captioned a photo of himself and the other dog. In a now-deleted 2022 tweet, he said he "couldn't think of a better way to spend a beautiful fall day than at the dog park."
"I know Scout enjoyed it," Walz tweeted, implying that he and Scout went to the dog park and met the other dog. Or—if you want to take the conspiratorial view, and forget the fact that sometimes people pet dogs that aren't theirs—revealing that Scout is either not real or two different dogs.
"You can’t make this up. I can’t wait for the press to say 'Yes Tim Walz has multiple dogs named scout and this is why that’s normal,'" wrote one poster in response.
But Walz also posted a video of himself playing with Scout and the other dog at the time.
Regardless, many conservatives are running with the theory that Walz doesn't actually have a dog.
"This is Tim Walz tweeting about his dog Scout," Minnesota Republican Dustin Grage tweeted. "Only problem is that these are two completely different dogs."
"Happy National Dog Day from Tim Walz," lawyer Payton Alexander tweeted, "who somehow apparently lied about this too."
Since joining Vice President Kamala Harris on the 2024 presidential ticket, Walz has been criticized for embellishing the facts about his time in the military and using fertility treatments to conceive his daughter, Hope, with his wife, Gwen.
He's also come under fire for his taco takes.
Backlash to the Walz dog conspiracy has been swift: Many liberal X users claimed that Republicans must be running out of attacks on Walz if they are claiming that he faked having a dog.
"MAGA lunatics are so desperate that they are literally making up lies about Tim Walz’s dog because they are too stupid to understand the concept of a dog park and that it’s highly possible to encounter other dogs there," an X user tweeted. "They have nothing left."
As for Walz's part, he hasn't made an official statement about the dog fiasco—though it appears he did delete the photo of himself and the other dog on X. It's not clear when that post was removed.
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