Pierre, Novak Djokovic's Poodle: the dog who couldn't get into Wimbledon

On the ATP tour almost every top player keeps a pet. What not everyone has is a dog with a magazine cover, his own Twitter account, and a minor diplomatic incident with the All England Club. Pierre, Novak Djokovic's white Toy Poodle, is the most-traveled animal in modern tennis. This is his story, pieced together from the details Djokovic himself has dropped in press conferences over the years.

Who Pierre is

Pierre is a white Toy Poodle who entered Novak and Jelena Djokovic's life around 2008. They gave him a French name. They bought him in Germany. And because the family is Serbian, Djokovic once summed him up with a line that became a press-room favorite: "He has a little bit of everything. Three passports."

That image says it all. Pierre works as a kind of diplomatic dog. He has accompanied Djokovic to tournaments around the world for nearly two decades. He has appeared in magazines (including a cover of L'Uomo Vogue, the Italian men's edition, in July 2011), on social media, and, when allowed in, in the player boxes at the tournaments themselves.

The 2011 Wimbledon ban

The most famous episode in Pierre's biography came in June 2011, right as Djokovic hit the best stretch of his career. He had dominated the European clay season and was preparing for Wimbledon. Pierre had followed him to almost every earlier event, including one surreal moment in Paris during the French Open: a photo of Djokovic feeding the dog noodles off a café table went viral.

The problem was that UK authorities at the time enforced strict animal-import controls (the rules have eased considerably since). Pierre did not meet the requirements to enter the United Kingdom without quarantine, and Djokovic was refused permission to bring him to the All England Club.

According to people close to him quoted in The Telegraph: "He is upset about not being able to bring Pierre to Wimbledon and is begging the authorities to let the dog in. Whenever he can, he takes the dog with him. He is genuinely affected. To him this is a very serious matter."

The twist is that Djokovic won that 2011 Wimbledon anyway, his first title on grass. Popular legend frames the win as a small, indirect payback against the people who would not let the dog in. He has since won six more Wimbledon titles (2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022). Pierre, meanwhile, waited it out in the London hotel.

The press conference with Maria Sharapova in the background

In 2012, at a Wimbledon press conference, Djokovic was wrapping up a story about Pierre when Maria Sharapova walked into the room behind him. Mid-proud-owner, he turned and asked her directly: "You have a dog, you saw it, right? You didn't see my dog?" Sharapova, off camera, said she had, and added that Nole's dog was "very small." The clip resurfaced years later as a perfect example of the spontaneous moments tennis broadcasts usually miss.

One more detail from that same press conference: a reporter asked whether Pierre was "gluten-free" (Djokovic had just become famous for his gluten-free diet). Without losing the smile, he answered: "Definitely yes, he has to follow his dad's regimen."

The rest of the canine family

Pierre is not the only dog in the Djokovic household. Over the years the family has added:

• Tesla, another Poodle, brought in more recently.
• A rescued mixed-breed dog that Jelena Djokovic has talked about online. The couple described on Instagram how they came across an abandoned puppy, bathed him at home, and adopted him. "I don't know if we found him or he found us. Luckily, neither one of us is lost anymore," Jelena wrote.

Choosing to adopt a street mixed-breed rather than buy another pedigree Poodle lines up with the animal-welfare advocacy both Novak and Jelena have voiced online for years. That is no small thing in a sport where almost no one talks about adoption.

The Toy Poodle: quick profile

To understand why Pierre fits a tennis player's life so well, it helps to look at the breed:

• AKC group: Toy (the Toy Poodle); the Poodle also competes as a Standard and a Miniature, all judged to one breed standard.
• Origin: developed as a water retriever in Germany and refined in France, where it became the national breed.
• Size: the Toy Poodle stands 10 inches or under at the shoulder and typically weighs 4-6 lb (1.8-2.7 kg).
• Temperament: exceptionally intelligent. Poodles rank near the top of canine intelligence studies (Stanley Coren, 1994, "The Intelligence of Dogs"). Sociable, highly trainable, closely bonded to the family.
• Coat: curly and low-shedding, which makes the breed more workable for people with mild allergies. It needs professional grooming every 6-8 weeks at a minimum.
• Lifespan: roughly 12-15 years, on the long side.
• Health: predisposition to patellar luxation, progressive retinal atrophy, and, in the Toy and Miniature, dental crowding.

For someone who travels constantly, the Toy Poodle is close to ideal: it fits in an airline cabin, sheds very little, learns routines fast, and settles into hotel rooms without much stress. It is no accident that many touring performers and athletes have chosen Poodles over the past century.

Why Pierre matters beyond the anecdote

Two things in this dog's story are worth holding onto:

1. It rehabilitates an unfairly caricatured breed. The Poodle carries a reputation as a fussy show-ring dog, when in fact it is one of the most versatile and intelligent breeds in the world. It was originally bred as a water retriever, not a lap ornament. The AKC still classifies the Standard Poodle in the Non-Sporting group precisely because of that working past.
2. It normalizes traveling with a dog among people who live on the road. That the world's top tennis player flies his Poodle across every continent is, indirectly, a message to other touring professionals: it can be done.

In short

Pierre has spent nearly two decades attached to one of the greatest athletes in history. He has watched Grand Slams lost and won, flown on private jets, landed on an Italian fashion cover, and once missed Wimbledon entirely thanks to British paperwork. For a Toy Poodle bought in Germany, given a French name, and raised in a Serbian household, that is not a bad resume.

What to check if you travel with a small dog

1. Whether your dog's microchip and rabies records meet the destination's import rules (USDA-APHIS and CDC for US re-entry).
2. Whether your airline's in-cabin pet policy fits your dog's carrier size and weight.
3. Whether your dog is acclimated to a travel crate well before the trip.
4. Whether your grooming schedule (every 6-8 weeks for a Poodle) lines up with long stretches away from home.
5. Whether you have current photos of your dog, front and side, in case you need them while abroad.