Guest Post:Heel to the Chief

August 24, 2009 by doggymom
Filed under Featured, Guest Bloggers

Heel to the Chief

There have been First Dogs in the White House since, well, since before there was a White House. Time and history has set many of our Presidents apart from us, especially those in the infancy of the U.S., upon pedestals, making them seem larger than life, but somehow the notion that they shared their lives with their pets — and gave some of them silly sounding or reassuringly normal names — brings them closer to being human like we are, rather than the demigods they sometimes seem to be. Normal humans doing great things.

George Washington kept hounds, as did many of his contemporaries. The names he gave his hounds, three Staghounds and four Black and Tan Coonhounds were colorful: Vulcan, Scentwell and Sweetlips were the Stags and Tippler, Taster, Tipsy and Drunkard the Black and Tans, leaving room for conjecture that President Washington indulged in punning. A version of the black and tan we're familiar with was known then, made with porter and pale ale. Mopsey, Cloe, Forester, Captain, Lady and Rover were also hounds.

The first dogs to live in the White House were John Adams' pair. Their breeds are unknown today, but we do know their names: Juno and Satan, interesting choices! Hopefully they helped President Adams stay warm at night. When they moved into the White House, it was unfinished and was cold and drafty. He probably needed another dog; winters were cold in Washington DC then.

Thomas Jefferson had two Briards, gifts from General Lafayette, one's name is lost to history, the one we know was named “Buzzy,” not a name we associate with that period of history. President Jefferson also is said to have had a pet mockingbird, perhaps a humorous reminder to himself to keep his perspective.

John Quincy Adams isn't recorded as having a pet dog, but it seems he did have an alligator, possibly the forerunner to today's Secret Service agents.

Martin VanBuren seems to have continued the trend during his tenure with a pair of tiger cubs. Congress convinced him they belonged in the zoo.

Tyler, like a good husband, imported a pair of Italian Wolfhounds for his wife; his Greyhound was a gift from the Italian consul.

Millard Fillmore deserves special attention. He isn't recorded as having any pets, but he became a founding member and president of the Buffalo chapter of the ASPCA

.During the challenging and lonely days of his impeachment, Andrew Johnson sought comfort by setting out flour each night for a family of mice.

Newfoundlands resided at the White House during the tenures of James Buchanan (Lara) and Ulysses S. Grant (Faithful). Faithful belonged to Jesse Grant, along with a yard of gamecocks. Buchanan also kept a small herd of elephants!

James Garfield named his dog “Veto,” possibly a harbinger of things to come.

True to his rural background, Abe Lincoln had an assortment of pets living on the White House grounds. Ponies, goats, a turkey, a pet pig and two dogs, Fido and Jip, shared city life with the former farm boy turned politician.

Rutherford Hayes also brought the farm to the city, along with a more esoteric pet. He kept pedigreed Jersey cows — no doubt the White House had the best cream and butter for state banquets — along with a goat, carriage horses, cats, a pair of hunting dogs, a spaniel, two Shepherd dogs named Nellie and Hector and the first Siamese cat in America. He also kept a mockingbird, presumably well out of the way of the cats.

Mockingbirds keep making appearances at the White House. Grover Cleveland was another Chief Executive to have them as a pets, along with his wife's canaries and her Japanese Poodle, Hector and his own dogs, a Dachshund and a Cocker Spaniel.

LBJ was a colorful President, and the one to unabashedly own a mutt, found abandoned at a gas station by one of his daughters. The little dog's name was Yuki and President Johnson let him entertain visiting state officials. There are photos of the little dog standing on the President's lap, head thrown back “singing” along with his master while state visitors look on, smiling. The big President from Texas also had a pair of beagles, “Him and Her.”

The most famous of all presidential dogs may have been a vice-presidential dog, Checkers. Then Vice President Richard Nixon's “Checkers speech” made his political career, snatching triumph from the brink of disaster. One short paragraph humanized the man, touched listeners and changed the course of history: And our little girl Tricia, the six year old, named it "Checkers." And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it.

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