Barack Obama and Michelle Obama said Sunny Obama died after 13 years with the family, ending a long run that began when Sunny joined them in August 2013. The couple shared the news in an Instagram statement on Wednesday and said they would miss Sunny terribly.
Instagram statement from the Obamas
“Yesterday, we lost a cherished member of our family,” Barack Obama and Michelle Obama wrote. They described Sunny as “a force of nature” and said, “But as far as our family was concerned, she was pretty much perfect,” a line that makes clear how closely the dog was woven into their daily lives.
Sunny was the Obamas’ Portuguese Water Dog and spent 13 years by their side. The family said Sunny was especially fond of Sasha and Malia, was fiercely protective of Bo, and preferred people to other dogs aside from Bo.
Sunny at the White House
Sunny joined the Obama family during Barack Obama's second term in the White House, so the dog’s life ran through the Obama White House years and then continued afterward. The family remembered Sunny as athletic and full of boundless energy, saying she leapt over the hedges on the South Lawn and chased squirrels, birds and anything else that moved.
That same statement also captured the contradiction at the center of Sunny’s personality: Sunny was a Portuguese Water Dog who hated getting wet. The Obamas said Sunny was a famously loud and sloppy drinker, more interested in having the family run around with her, roll on the floor with her, or rub her belly for as long as they were willing.
Bo and the family loss
The Obamas linked Sunny’s death to Bo, their first dog, who died in May 2021 at age 12 after a battle with cancer. They wrote, “We will miss her terribly, and imagine she's with her big brother now, making sure he's okay,” placing Sunny’s death inside a longer family loss that began more than five years earlier.
For readers following the family’s public life, the immediate change is simple: Sunny is gone, and the Obamas have marked that loss publicly rather than quietly. The statement leaves no further step to watch for; it stands as the family’s own account of Sunny’s last chapter and the way they want the dog remembered.
