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Call it a tale of wags to riches.

The presidential inauguration Wednesday heralds a new era: the first time a shelter dog will live in the White House. President-elect Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, adopted their pup Major, a German shepherd, from the Delaware Humane Assn. just over two years ago.

“It doesn’t get more of a Cinderella story for a dog,” said Kitty Block, president of the Humane Society of the United States. “And the timing couldn’t have been better.”

Block said that Major’s move into the West Wing represents a shift among Americans away from buying pets and toward adopting them instead, a trend that has only been furthered by the pandemic. She hopes having a shelter dog in the first family will cement the end of pet-buying in the U.S.

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