United States presidential pets

Socks the cat at the podium in the White House Press Briefing Room.
Grace Coolidge with Laddie Buck, an Airedale Terrier, and Rob Roy, a white Collie.

This is a list of pets belonging to United States Presidents and their families, while serving their term(s) in office.[1]

History of White House dogs

The first White House dog to receive regular newspaper coverage was Warren G. Harding's dog Laddie Boy.[2]

Pets also featured on presidential elections. Herbert Hoover got a Belgian shepherd dog, King Tut, during his campaign and pictures of him with his new dog were sent all across the United States.

In 1944 Franklin D. Roosevelt was running for his fourth term when rumors surfaced that his Scottish Terrier, Fala, had accidentally been left behind when visiting the Aleutian Islands. After allegedly sending back ships to rescue his dog, Roosevelt was ridiculed and accused of spending thousands of taxpayers' dollars to retrieve his dog. At a speech following this Roosevelt said, "you can criticize me, my wife and my family, but you can't criticize my little dog. He's Scotch and all these allegations about spending all this money have just made his little soul furious."[3] What was later called the "Fala Speech" reportedly helped secure re-election for Roosevelt.

Miss Beazley, a Scottish Terrier given to Laura Bush by her husband

Richard Nixon was accused of hiding a secret slush fund during his candidacy for vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. He gave a televised "Checkers speech" named after his cocker spaniel; denying he had a slush fund but admitted that, "there is one thing that I did get as a gift that I'm not going to give back.”[4] The gift was a black and white cocker spaniel, Checkers, given to his daughters. Although Nixon had been in danger of being kicked off the ticket, following his speech he received an increase in support and Mamie Eisenhower reportedly recommended he stay because he was “such a warm person”.[5][6]

On the other hand, many believe that President Lyndon B. Johnson’s image was damaged because of his pets. He was photographed picking his two Beagle dogs named Him and Her up by their ears. Much of the public was outraged and animal lovers spoke out against it. Others, however, did not understand the basis of the uproar and former President Harry S. Truman was even reported to have said, "What the hell are the critics complaining about; that's how you handle hounds."[4] While it may not have hurt his presidency, this scandal shed a new light on the president's image.

List of Presidential pets

President Pet(s)
George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
  • Briefly owned two tiger cubs*
William Henry Harrison
John Tyler
James K. Polk
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
James A. Garfield
Chester A. Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
Dash in front of his doghouse
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
Roosevelt family with Skip
William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren G. Harding
Laddie Boy
Calvin Coolidge
Portrait of Rob Roy and Grace Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover with King Tut
Franklin D. Roosevelt
FDR and Fala (1940)
Harry S. Truman
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Kennedy family and dogs
Lyndon B. Johnson
LBJ with Him
Richard Nixon
King Timahoe, Vicki and Pasha looking out the window in the White House
Gerald Ford
Susan Ford, daughter of Gerald Ford, and the family's siamese cat, Shan, in 1974.

Ford and Liberty in the Oval Office
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
Rex
Ronald Reagan on El Alamein
George H. W. Bush
Millie
Bill Clinton
Socks
George W. Bush
India
Barack Obama
Bo and Sunny

See also

Notes

  1. Most sources say "possibly", and don't qualify "Wolfhound" any further; perhaps Morrow's extensive work draws on evidence beyond the source used by the 51 Google-distinguished versions (out "of about 2,640") for ‘Kennedy "wolf mutt, possibly part schnauzer and wolfhound"’, in contrast to ‘No results found for Kennedy "wolf mutt, possibly part schnauzer and wolfhound"’.

References

  1. "Presidential Pet Museum". Presidential Pet Museum. Retrieved 2011-06-16.
  2. Famous and Forgotten, Toledo’s Laddie Boy, The First Presidential Pet
  3. "1944 Radio News, 1944-09-23 FDR Teamsters Union Address – Fala (27:45–30:08)". Internet Archive. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Presidential pets of the past". K-state.edu. 1952-09-23. Retrieved 2011-06-16.
  5. DVM: The Newsmagazine of Veterinary Medicine; Oct2008, Vol. 39 Issue 10, p22-22, 2/3p
  6. Ethan Trex. "mental_floss Blog » The Bizarre History of White House Pets". Mentalfloss.com. Retrieved 2011-06-16.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Pamela Redmond Satran (5 November 2012). "Do You Have a Dog in This Election? Pets Are Presidential". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 19 June 2013.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Choron, 20.
  9. Nelson (Horse)
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 "Spring 1999: Presidential Pets". Inside the White House. nara.gov. Retrieved 21 December 2012.
  11. Wolf, Alissa. "First Pets: A History of Critters in the White House". About.com. Retrieved 2 October 2012.
  12. 1 2 Calkhoven, Laurie (2007). George Washington: An American Life. Edison, NJ: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. p. 91. ISBN 9781402735462.
  13. The Handy Science Answer Book. Visible Ink Press. 2011. Retrieved 2012-12-22.
  14. The Handy Science Answer Book. Visible Ink Press. 2011. Retrieved 2015-10-03.
  15. Abraham Lincoln’s Cats
  16. 1 2 3 "Pets in the White House". White House for Kids. nara.gov. Retrieved 21 December 2012.
  17. U.S. Presidents: Truth and Rumors By Sean Price, Sean Stewart Price. Coughlan Publishing, 2010, Page 14: Accessed Via Google Books Search April 27, 2011. Quote under Presidential Pets:"Benjamin Harrison let a pair of pet opossums run around."
  18. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 "The Roosevelt Pets". National Park Service. U.S. Department of the Interior. Retrieved 21 December 2012. (Reprinted from the National Archives and Records Administration)
  19. 1 2 Stephen Bauer, At Ease in the White House: Social Life as Seen by a Presidential Military Aide, Taylor Trade Publications, 2004. ISBN 1-58979-079-0. pp 224.
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Sandra Choron, Planet Dog: A Doglopedia, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005, ISBN 0-618-51752-9. pp 21.
  21. Amy Ruth, Herbert Hoover, Twenty-First Century Books, 2004, ISBN 0-8225-0821-4. pp 64.
  22. Wayne Bryant Eldridge, Tom Kerr The Best Pet Name Book Ever!, Barron's Educational Series, 2003, ISBN 0-7641-2499-4. pp 29.
  23. Herbert Hoover Biography
  24. "President Truman's Dog, Feller". Highland-ohio.com. 1948-01-12. Retrieved 2011-06-16.
  25. Sally Bedell Smith, Grace And Power, Random House, Inc., 2006, ISBN 0-345-48497-5, pp 219.
  26. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Pets – John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum". Jfklibrary.org. 1961-12-03. Retrieved 2011-06-16.
  27. Smith, 125.
  28. Morrow, Laurie Bogart, The Giant Book of Dog Names, p. 414
  29. J. Randy Taraborrelli, Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot, Warner Books, 2000, ISBN 0-446-60912-9. pp 14.
  30. Smith, 293, 489.
  31. 1 2 3 4 Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum President Johnson's Dogs
  32. 1 2 3 4 Bryant, Traphes, with Frances Spatz Leighton, Dog Days at the White House: The Outrageous Memoirs of the Presidential Kennel Keeper, New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1975. ISBN 0-671-80533-9
  33. "Lyndon B. Johnson's Pet Info". Exoticdogs.com. Retrieved 2011-06-16.
  34. 1 2 3 GMU Library
  35. Bauer, 8.
  36. Ford Presidential Library and Museum, Ford Family White House and Pets
  37. Grits in the White House, Chicago Tribune
  38. "Presidential Pooch – Grits, the Impeached First Dog | Bully Sticks". Bullysticksinfo.com. 2008-11-21. Retrieved 2011-06-16.
  39. "Ronald Reagan Presidential Library". Reagan.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2011-06-16.
  40. 1 2 3 4 5 Stanley Coren, Why Does My Dog Act That Way?, Simon and Schuster, 2007, ISBN 0-7432-7707-4. pp 6.
  41. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Stanley Coren, Why We Love the Dogs We Do: How to Find the Dog That Matches Your Personality, Simon and Schuster, 2000, ISBN 0-684-85502-X. pp. 5.
  42. Coren, Why Does my Dog..., 7.
  43. George H. W. Bush, All the Best, George Bush Simon and Schuster, 2000, pp 595, correspondence from September 10, 1996, ISBN 0-7432-0048-9, ISBN 978-0-7432-0048-6
  44. 1 2 Bailey, Holly (April 24, 2013). "Laura Bush: New library is not ‘a monument’ to her husband". Yahoo News. Retrieved April 24, 2013.
  45. Barack Obama (August 19, 2013). "Meet the newest member of the Obama family: Sunny.". Facebook. Retrieved August 19, 2013.
  46. Hannah August (August 19, 2013). "Meet Sunny: The Obamas' New Puppy". The White House Blog. Retrieved August 20, 2013.

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