Emmanuel Macron
French President Emmanuel Macron’s dog, Nemo, was caught taking a leak against the fireplace in the presidential office. In this photo, French president Emmanuel Macron gestures towards his dog Nemo during a meeting with German Vice Chancellor and German Foreign Minister at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Aug. 30, 2017. Reuters/ Alain Jocard

French President Emmanuel Macron’s dog, Nemo, was recently captured taking a leak against the fireplace in the presidential office when its owner was busy in a meeting with junior ministers.

Two-year-old Nemo, unaware that it was interrupting an important meeting between the president and the ministers, chose to cock one of its hind legs and relieve itself on the ornamental fireplace in full view of the press cameras.

Macron’s talks of inner-city investment were cut short when he realized what the dog did. He tilted his head to the left to find his beloved pet dog urinating on the fireplace. “I wondered what that noise was,” Brune Poirson, the junior minister for ecology, who was talking when the dog was relieving itself, said.

Everyone in the room, including the president as well as the interviewer, cracked up when they noticed what Nemo was up to. “He is doing something quite exceptional,” Macron can be heard saying in French, in the video. When asked by one of the ministers whether it was a common behavior displayed by Nemo, Macron replied with laughter: “No. You have triggered a totally unusual behavior in my dog.”

The black labrador-griffon cross, that the French president has been in possession of since summer this year, has often been pictured alongside the world leader in the presidential garden or inside Macron’s residence. He is the first presidential dog in France to have been adopted from an animal rescue shelter.

In late August, Nemo was captured standing obediently beside its master when the latter was waiting to welcome Nigerian President Mahamadou Issoufou. In the video, Nemo can be seen accompanying Macron down the steps of the Élysée Palace, waiting for the presidents to exchange courtesies and then go back up again.

According to a report published by the Guardian, Nemo is not the only presidential pet dog to lose its composure. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s dog frequently gnawed on expensive furniture at the presidential residence; so much so, that thousands of Euros worth of restoration work was needed after his tenure was over.