All the Presidents' Pets (18 page)

The Presidents and Their Pets

A SELECTED LIST

GEORGE WASHINGTON

Washington deserves the additional moniker “Father of the American foxhound” after crossing General Lafayette's gift of seven stag hounds—among them, Sweet Lips, Scentwell, and Vulcan—with his own smaller black-and-tan Virginia hounds—among them Drunkard, Taster, Tipler, and Tipsy—to create “a superior dog, one that had speed, scent, and brains.”

Royal Gift the jackass did indeed sire a race of “supermules.”

Nelson the horse carried Washington to Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown.

JOHN ADAMS

Dogs Juno and Satan offered the man known as the “Duke of Braintree” solace after his humiliating loss in the election of 1800.
 
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The presidential stables were built for his favorite horse, Cleopatra.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Buzzy the Briard sheepdog sailed back from France with the president.

Several unnamed grizzly bears, a gift from either Lewis and Clark or Lt. Zebulon Pike, were caged on the White House lawn, which political opponents soon dubbed “The President's Bear Garden.”

Dick the mockingbird was a constant companion.

(Jefferson once said that maintaining slavery was like “holding a wolf by the ears.” There is no record of his ever having had wolves.)

JAMES MADISON

First Lady Dolley saved three things when the British burned down the White House in 1814: the portrait of George Washington, the Declaration of Independence, and Polly the Parrot. The President had fled hours before.

JAMES MONROE

Monroe's daughter Hester Maria had a black spaniel, name unknown.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

President Adams and his wife, Louisa, reared silkworms.

An alligator brought by the Marquis de Lafayette during an 1825 visit resided in the East Room for several months.

ANDREW JACKSON

Old Hickory's obscene parrot Pol was found in a Nashville confectioner's shop.

His prized Tennessee fighting cocks all suffered defeat against Virginia fighting cocks.

MARTIN VAN BUREN

The “Little Magician” was forced by Congress to give his two tiger cubs, a gift from Kabul al Said, Sultan of Oman, to the zoo.

(Van Buren was vilified for allowing the War Department to use Cuban bloodhounds to remove Seminoles from Florida in 1840 and track down runaway slaves.)

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON

Sukey the cow was purchased locally and barely had time to get to know her president.

JOHN TYLER

Le Beau the Italian greyhound was sent from Naples.

Johnny Ty the canary was single until President Tyler found him a mate. But after the mate was added to the cage, Johnny died within a week. The mate turned out to be male!

Tyler wrote the following epitaph for his horse The General: “For years he bore me around the circuit of my practice and all that time he never made a blunder. Would that his master could say the same . . .”

JAMES K. POLK

He had a horse.

ZACHARY TAYLOR

Old Whitey the horse was knock-kneed and as misshapen as his President. Visitors plucked souvenir hairs from his tail.

MILLARD FILLMORE

No pets, at least
officially.

FRANKLIN PIERCE

President Pierce received seven miniature Oriental dogs and two birds from Japan, part of a large consignment marking the opening of diplomatic relations. He gave one of the birds to Mrs. Jefferson Davis, though he probably never remembered doing so, since he was
never sober.

JAMES BUCHANAN

Lara the 170-pound Newfoundland became a celebrity, known for lying motionless for hours at a time with one eye open.

Punch the tiny toy terrier was a gift from the U.S. consul in South Hampton, England.

The King of Siam sent along a herd of elephants.

Two bald eagles were a gift from a “friend” in San Francisco.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Lincoln indulged his boys, Tad and Willie, with a menagerie of animals, including two ponies. Not long after Willie's death, the two ponies were trapped in a fire, from which the president unsuccessfully tried to rescue them.

Tad found contentment with his goats, Nanny and Nanko.

Jack the turkey was originally slated for Christmas dinner. The sentence was reprieved after Tad's plea for clemency.

Fido the mongrel was the first presidential pet to be photographed. He followed Lincoln's funeral procession throughout Springfield. A year later he was stabbed by a drunk.

ANDREW JOHNSON

During the period of his impeachment, the “Tennessee Tailor” found white mice in his bedroom and began leaving them handfuls of flour. “The little fellows gave me their confidence. I gave them their basket and poured some water into a bowl on the hearth for them.” He was also a drunk. There is no evidence that he murdered Fido.

ULYSSES S. GRANT

Grant's horses included Cincinnatus (a gift from the citizens of Cincinnati), St. Louis, Egypt, Reb, Billy Button, and his pointedly named wartime mount, Jeff Davis. Butcher Boy was so fast, the President received a speeding ticket from the D.C. police.

Rosie was an unpedigreed yellow-and-black bitch.

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES

Hayes's collection of dogs included Dot the cocker spaniel, Hector the Newfoundland, Deke the English mastiff, Juno and Shep the hunting pups, Grim the greyhound (killed by a train), and Jet the small black mutt.

Other pets included a goat, a peacock, a cat named Piccolomini, and a mockingbird.

And of course there was Miss Pussy the Siamese cat.

JAMES GARFIELD

Veto the dog was named as a threat to Congress.

CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR

“Elegant Arthur” burned all his papers the day before he left office, and we know nothing about his pet status.
 
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GROVER CLEVELAND

First Lady Frances Folsom's mockingbird sang very loudly, much to the annoyance of the family's Japanese poodle and dalmatian.

BENJAMIN HARRISON

His Whiskers the goat used to drag Harrison's three grandkids in a cart, followed by Dash the collie.

Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection were the resident First Opossums.

WILLIAM MCKINLEY

Washington Post the yellow-headed Mexican parrot used to chant, “Oh, look at all the pretty girls,” to anyone who passed by his cage in the White House.

First Lady Ida named four angora kittens after news figures of the day, including Valeriano Weyler, the Cuban governor, and Enrique DeLome, the Spanish Ambassador to the U.S. After the commencement of the Spanish-American War, she had those two kittens drowned.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

TR's six children turned the White House into a veritable zoo. Dogs included Skip the short-legged rat terrier, Blackjack the Manchester terrier, Manchu the black Pekingese (a gift from China's Empress Dowager Ci-Xi), Rollo the Saint Bernard, and Sailor Boy the Chesapeake retriever. Pete the bull terrier was banished after tearing a hole in the pants of French Ambassador Jules Jusserand.

Cats included the terrorizing Tom Quartz and the six-toed Slippers.

Emily Spinach the garter snake was named so by daughter Alice “because it was green as spinach and as thin as my Aunt Emily.” Quentin once unleashed his own four snakes in an Oval Office meeting.

Archie's pony Algonquin famously got stuck in the White House elevator, so entranced he was with his own reflection in the mirror.

Maude the pig, Josiah the badger, and Jonathan the piebald rat shared digs with the guinea pigs, Dr. Johnson, Bishop Doane, Fighting Bob Evans, and Father O'Grady.

Baron Spreckle the hen, Eli Yale the macaw, and a one-legged rooster with a crutch made by the kids rounded out the collection with a hyena, a coyote, a zebra, and still others.

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

Caruso the dog was a gift from opera singing star Enrico Caruso. The dog's bark was a high-pitched tenor.

Mooly Wooly, the first cow at the White House since Andrew Johnson's time, gave unsatisfactory milk.

Pauline Wayne was the last cow ever at the White House.

(Three-time presidential loser William Jennings Bryan lost his final race in 1908. He might have had better luck had he not been such a vocal critic of evolutionary theory, which he disparagingly termed “apism.”)

WOODROW WILSON

Old Ike the ram, addicted to chewing tobacco, was put out to pasture under the care of AP reporter Robert Probert.

Puffins the cat ate several of the Wilsons' songbirds.

The President who once said, “If a dog will not come to you after he has looked you in the face, you ought to go home and examine your conscience,” owned two of them, Mountain Boy the greyhound and Bruce the bull terrier.

WARREN HARDING

Laddie Boy the airedale was a national figure. His fictitious correspondence with the vaudeville dog star Tiger was used to defend Harding's loyalty to dubious administration officials. After the death of Harding, America's first newspaperman turned president, 19,134 members of the Newsboys Association chipped in one penny each for the casting of a statue of Laddie Boy. It resides in the Smithsonian's Museum of American History.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

Coolidge's dogs were celebrities and treated as such. Will Rogers once said, “Well, they was feeding the dogs so much that one time it looked to me like the dogs was getting more than I was . . . I come pretty near getting down on my all fours and barking to see if business wouldn't pick up with me.” Rob Roy and Prudence Prim the white collies, Paul Pry the airedale (half brother to Laddie Boy), Calamity Jane the Shetland sheepdog, Boston Beans the bulldog, and Palo Alto the birddog were only some of the canine occupants.

Rebecca the raccoon found temporary companionship with Horace the raccoon before he took off.

Most of the following pets eventually ended up at the zoo: Ebeneezer the donkey, a wallaby, two lion cubs, Enoch the goose, an antelope, a pygmy hippo, and Smoky the bobcat.

HERBERT HOOVER

Hoover found King Tut the husky on a relief trip to Belgium during World War I. A photograph of the two together was subsequently used to warm the candidate to voters during his first run for the presidency in 1928. The White House depressed Tut, though, and he died an emotional wreck.

Patrick the huge gray-brown Irish wolfhound was the great-great-grandson of Cragwood Darragh, the most famous Irish wolfhound bred in America.

Weejie the elkhound was also huge, often mistaken for a pony.

Billy the opossum was found on the White House grounds. He turned out to be the mascot of a Hyattsville, Maryland, baseball team. Hoover reluctantly returned him and the team went on to the state championships.

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT

Fala the Scottie was living under the name Big Boy in Westport, Rhode Island, before he went to the White House. He was formally renamed Murray the Outlaw of Fala Hill, after a Roosevelt ancestor. The President chose cotton over silk sheets so that Fala could sleep on top. He went almost everywhere with the President, though he did miss Yalta.

Fala wasn't the only dog in FDR's White House. Winks the Llewellyn setter once gobbled up eighteen bacon and egg breakfasts. He broke his neck after running headlong into a fence.

Meggie the Scotch terrier once bit newswoman Bess Furman on the nose.

Major the German Shepherd once ripped British PM Ramsay MacDonald's pants.

HARRY S. TRUMAN

The man who said, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog,” had little use for them. Feller the cocker spaniel and Mike the Irish setter were sent away.

Mike the Magicat wandered onto the White House lawn. The owner was famed astrologer Jeane Dixon.

DWIGHT EISENHOWER

Supreme Allied Commander Ike enjoyed the company of Caacie and Telek the Scotties—the second a gift from his driver, Kay Summersby, whose company he also enjoyed. (The man defeated Hitler. He was entitled to anything he wanted.)

Heidi the Weimaraner was highly neurotic and left a terrible stain on the Diplomatic Room's carpet.

Squirrels were the bane of Ike's putting green. They were successfully relocated to Rock Creek Park.

A giant pig, a gift from an Indianan named Elden Holsapple (just a
great
name), was sent to live on the Eisenhower farm in Gettysburg.

Vicky the vicuna was turned into a coat for Chief of Staff Sherman Adams and all hell broke loose.

JOHN F. KENNEDY

The White House ran a letter-writing contest to find homes for Pushinka and Charlie's pupniks. Charlie, by the way, was the nephew of Asta from the
Thin Man
movies.

Shannon the Irish cocker spaniel was a gift from Irish PM Eamon De Valera. Wolf the Irish wolfhound was a gift from a Dublin priest named Kennedy. Clipper the German shepherd was a gift from Joe Kennedy to Jackie.

Billy and Debbie the hamsters birthed six hamsters. Billy ate them. Then Debbie ate Billy. Then Debbie died.