Presidential Pets: the History of Pets in the White House - FreeSchool Presents: Hilarious History

It's early 2021 and there are some new residents in the White House; We're talking, of course, about Champ and Major Biden, the two German shepherds owned by President Joe Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden. Presidential

pets

are a tradition that dates back to George Washington and most presidents, with very few exceptions, have had animals while in office. President Biden is making a decision popular with his dogs. Of the 42 presidents who had

pets

, 33 of them had at least one dog during his term. Birds were the second most popular type of pet, owned by 18 different presidents, followed by 14 presidents who owned horses.

Surprisingly, cats came in at number 4 and have only accompanied 12 presidents during their time in office. We're not going to cover every pet of every president, but let's start with George Washington. George Washington was a well-known dog lover and breeder of American foxhounds, although he also had other breeds of dogs. Some of his notable dogs? Vulcan, Drunk and... Sweet Lips. Along with his dogs he had horses, a donkey that King Charles III of Spain gave him and a parrot called Snipe. His successor, John Adams, had horses named Caesar and Cleopatra and three dogs, one of which was named Satan.

Thomas Jefferson raised mockingbirds, dogs, and horses, and Zebulon Pike (of Pike's Peak fame) gave him a pair of grizzly bear cubs. The puppies were deemed "too dangerous and troublesome to own" and were sent to live in a museum in Philadelphia. Let's move on to John Quincy Adams, the sixth president: he kept silkworms in mulberry trees on the White House grounds. President Adams took great interest in the progress of his silkworms, watching them develop and counting the eggs he laid. His wife, Louisa, collected the silk to spin. The 7th president, Andrew Jackson, owned horses and fighting cocks, but he was also famous for having a foul-mouthed parrot named Poll.

Poll was an African gray parrot. Jackson bought it for his wife, Rachel, but when she died, he took care of the bird himself. They must have gotten closer, because when former President Poll died he went to his funeral. According to the reverend leading the service, "Before the sermon and as the crowd was gathering, an evil parrot that was a

house

hold pet became excited and began cursing so loudly and for so long that it bothered the people and had to be taken out."

house

." He also said that the birds were "excited by the crowd and...let out perfect bursts of 'dirty words'." The mourners were apparently "horrified and astonished at the bird's lack of reverence." The Sultan of Oman gave Andrew Jackson's successor, Martin van Buren, a pair of tiger cubs.

Unlike SOME presidents, he was delighted to have a cute pair of predators in the White House and began preparing his house for them. Unfortunately, Congress objected. They stated that the puppies were a gift to the United States and not to Van Buren personally. Martin van Buren argued fiercely, but in the end Congress won and the cubs were sent to the local zoo... which is probably where they belonged, actually. Several presidents later we come to Abraham Lincoln. He kept goats, dogs, cats, horses and rabbits during his time in the White House, but one notable creature of his presidency was a turkey named Jack.

Jack arrived at the White House in November 1863, and Tad, Abraham Lincoln's ten-year-old son, quickly made the turkey his pet and taught him to follow him around the White House grounds. When Tad found out that Jack was supposed to be killed for Christmas dinner, he cried and begged his father to spare the bird. The kindly Lincoln wrote a stay of execution that Tad brought to the chef, saving Jack's life and marking the first time a president pardoned a turkey. Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States, had a pair of much-loved pet opossums that could often be seen wandering around the White House.

William McKinley had a yellow-headed Mexican parrot that could whistle the Yankee Doodle. It should surprise no one that Theodore Roosevelt, famous as a nature lover and conservationist, has more pets than any president. The large number was due in part to his six children, who had in their home five guinea pigs, a bear, a lizard, a pig, a badger, a macaw, a chicken, a one-legged rooster, a hyena, an owl, a rabbit, a snake and a pony. This impressive list doesn't even include the most "normal" dogs and cats. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson kept a flock of sheep on the White House lawn.

The sheep saved labor by mowing the grass and their wool was auctioned to support the Red Cross War Fund. The first celebrity

presidential

pet was an Airedale Terrier named Laddie Boy, belonging to Warren G. Harding. Laddie Boy was famous. He had his own chair to sit in at Cabinet meetings, the White House hosted birthday parties for him, he attended fundraisers with the First Lady, and he had an official portrait made of him. The Washington Star and the New York Times regularly published articles about Laddie Boy, and even reported on his death six years after he left the White House.

Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president, seemed to want to rival Theodore Roosevelt's pet collection. Along with about a dozen dogs, several cats, and some birds (including ducks and geese), the Coolidges had some more exotic pets, including a pair of raccoons, a bobcat, two lion cubs, and a pygmy hippopotamus, a wallaby, a bear and a duiker (or a very small type of antelope). Some of these most interesting pets finally made it to a zoo. Once Coolidge left the White House, no more exotic animals would be installed, but that didn't stop

presidential

pets from attracting the nation's attention. Franklin D.

Roosevelt had several dogs, but his favorite and most famous was a small Scottish terrier named Fala. Fala was the president's constant companion, but shortly after arriving at the White House, the little dog mysteriously fell ill. After an investigation it turned out that Fala was asking for treats from the White House staff, who couldn't resist feeding the cute little dog much more than he was supposed to eat. The president established that he was the only one allowed to feed his dog and Fala quickly recovered. Fala was so famous that a secretary was assigned to handle his fan mail and two films were made about him.

John F. Kennedy, the youngest man ever elected president, moved into the White House with two young children, as well as his pets. During his presidency, Kennedy's menagerie included hamsters, pet birds, a rabbit, ducklings, a cat named Tom Kitten, and several dogs, as well as horses and ponies. One of Kennedy's most famous pets was a puppy named Pushinka. Pushinka (Russian for "Fluffy") was the daughter of a Soviet space dog who orbited the Earth aboard Sputnik in 1960 and was a gift from the Soviet premier to the president and his family. Initially there was some concern that Pushinka might be a spy (hiding a Russian listening device somewhere on her small body), but once the Secret Service vetted her, she became a favorite of not only the Kennedys but of all country.

When Pushinka had puppies, about 5,000 people wrote to the White House to request one, and two of them were given to children living in the Midwest. The next president, Lyndon Johnson, was the most recent president to have birds in the White House, and he brought a pair of lovebirds when he moved in. He also had several dogs, including a pair of beagles named Him and Her, but one of the most famous was a mixed-breed dog named Yuki, who was famous for "singing a duet" (aka howling) with the president. Let's review the next presidents. Richard Nixon had three dogs while in office, Gerald Ford had a Golden Retriever named Liberty who had a litter of eight puppies in the White House.

Seven of his puppies found good homes and one became a guide dog! Jimmy Carter's daughter Amy had a Siamese cat named Misty Malarky Ying Yang. Ronald Reagan had dogs, cats, and horses on his California ranch, but the dog who lived with him in the White House was a small King Charles Spaniel named Rex. The first President Bush had a Springer Spaniel named Millie. Millie had puppies while George Bush was in office, and one of those puppies, named Spotty, went to his son George W. Bush. When he was elected president in 2000, Spotty went to the White House with him, making him the only known case of father-son presidents having mother-daughter pets in the White House.

But we can't skip Bill Clinton! The Clintons had a cat named Socks, who began life as a stray on the streets of Little Rock, Arkansas. During the Clinton presidency, Socks became a media sensation and was the first presidential mascot to have a website. In the future, the Obamas kept a pair of Portuguese water dogs, Bo and Sunny, as pets in the White House. This unusual breed was selected because it is hypoallergenic, a concession to allergies by the president's daughter, Malia. That brings us back to Joe Biden and his champion, senior German shepherd. Champ joined the Bidens in 2008, after Joe Biden promised his wife Jill that they would buy a dog if Barack Obama won the presidency and he became vice president.

In 2018 they added Major, a rescue they fostered and later adopted from the Delaware Humane Association. Major is notable for being the first rescue dog to live in the White House. Before Joe Biden's inauguration, the Delaware Humane Association hosted an "indoguration" ceremony for Major, raising $200,000 in donations. Over the years, presidential pets have been a small but important part of American

history

. From wild animals to gifts from foreign dignitaries to common household pets, the animals our presidents kept have fostered friendly relations with other countries, captured the imagination of Americans and, perhaps most importantly, provided their presidents with a furry friend in who to trust