Our pet animals are a big part of being human, and they endear us to others by proxy. This isn’t lost on politicians who have used their relationship with pet animals to great effect.
No candidate, for instance, needed humanizing more than Richard Nixon, and his televised Checkers speech in 1952 worked the necessary magic.
After the Checkers speech, Mamie Eisenhower was brought to tears.
So it’s not surprising that presidential pets happen to have fascinating back stories, from their names, their talents, and even their proclivity to want to take a chunk out of their owners. I happened upon an account of all the presidents’ historical pets since George Washington, and the list proved to be more scintillating than I could had imagined, so I decided to share some highlights.
Let’s explore:
Donkeys
- Royal Gift, Andalusian donkey (George Washington)
- Ebeneezer, donkey (Calvin Coolidge)
Cows
- Sukey, Durham cow (William Henry Harrison)
- Mooly Wooley and Pauline Wayne, cows (William Howard Taft)
- Ofelia, Longhorn cow (George W. Bush)
Lots of Horses
- Nelson and Blueskin, war mounts (George Washington)
- Samson, Steady, Leonidas, Traveller, Magnolia, stallions (George Washington)
- Cleopatra and Caesar, horses (John Adams)
- Caractacus, horse (Thomas Jefferson)
- Bolivia, Emily, Lady Nashville, Sam Patch, and Truxton, horses (Andrew Jackson)
- The General, horse (John Tyler)
- Old Whitey, horse (Zachary Taylor)
- Apollo, circus pony (Zachary Taylor)
- Mason and Dixon, ponies (Millard Fillmore)
- Old Bob, horse (Abraham Lincoln)
- Butcher Boy, Cincinnati, Egypt, Jeff Davis, Jennie, Julia, Mary and St. Louis, horses (Ulysses S. Grant)
- Billy Button and Reb, horses (Ulysses S. Grant)
- Kit, horse (James A. Garfield)
- Three horses (Chester A. Arthur)
- Algonquin, Shetland pony (Theodore Roosevelt)
- Macaroni and Tex, ponies (John F. Kennedy)
- Leprechaun, Connemara pony, (John F. Kennedy) a gift from President of Ireland, Éamon de Valera
- El Alamein, Nancy D, Baby, Little Man and others, horses (Ronald Reagan)
Talented Pets
- Washington Post, parrot (William McKinley) could whistle Yankee Doodle
- Apollo, pony (Zachary Taylor) a former circus performer
- Dixie, cat (Abraham Lincoln) Lincoln once said that Dixie was "smarter than my whole cabinet"
- Checkers, dog (Richard Nixon) graciously put up with Nixon's perfidy
- Bo, Portuguese Water Dog (Barack Obama) chosen partly because Malia was not allergic to this breed
Contrary to this otherwise well done video, Sunny is actually a female.
Notable pet names
- Sweetlips and Scentwell, fox hounds (George Washington)
- Royal Gift, Andalusian donkey (George Washington) indeed, a gift from Spain's Charles III
- Drunkard, Tipler and Tipsy, coonhounds (George Washington) a pattern?
- Satan, dog (John Adams) what was he thinking?
- Caratacus, horse (Thomas Jefferson) named after a 1st century British chieftan
- Sam Patch, horse (Andrew Jackson) named after famous daredevil "The Yankee Leaper"
- Jet, dog (Rutherford B. Hayes)
- Veto, dog (James Garfield)
- Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection, opossums (Benjamin Harrison) from the 1896 Republican party platform: "Protection and reciprocity are twin measures of the Republican policy . . ."
- Emily Spinach, garter snake (Theodore Roosevelt) according to Roosevelt daughter Alice, "it was as green as spinach and as thin as my Aunt Emily"
- Tom Quartz, cat (Theodore Roosevelt) cat name from a Mark Twain story
- Baron Spreckle, hen (Theodore Roosevelt) likely named after sugar baron Claus Spreckels
- Boston Beans, bulldog (Calvin Coolidge) wouldn’t be my first name choice
- Do-Funny, trained troupial songbird (Calvin Coolidge) Mrs. Coolidge's favorite
- Misty Malarky Ying Yang, Siamese cat (Jimmy Carter) daughter Amy's kitty along with Grits (dog)
Dangerous pets
- Grizzly Bear cubs (Thomas Jefferson) gifted by Cpt. Zebulon Pike
- Alligator (John Quincy Adams) gifted by Marquis de Lafayette, but possibly apocryphal
- Fighting cocks (Andrew Jackson)
- Two tiger cubs (Martin Van Buren) Congress forced Van Buren to later donate the tiger cubs to the zoo
- Eagle (James Buchanan)
- Two alligators (Benjamin Harrison) one account said that they were kept in the WH conservatory
- Jonathan Edwards, black bear (Theodore Roosevelt)
- Josiah (aka 'Josh'), badger (Theodore Roosevelt) not a very friendly animal
- Bill, hyena (Theodore Roosevelt) one of the most powerful jaws in all of nature
- Barn owl (Theodore Roosevelt)
- Pete, bull terrier (Theodore Roosevelt) banished to Long Island for "chomping on one too many legs"
- Smoky, bobcat (Calvin Coolidge)
- Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau, lion cubs (Calvin Coolidge)
- William Johnson Hippopotamus (aka 'Billy'), pygmy hippopotamus (Calvin Coolidge) attended the 1939 New York World's Fair; died 1955
- Bruno, black bear (Calvin Coolidge) from Chihuahua, Mexico
- Grits, Border collie (Jimmy Carter) A gift to Amy, which was returned for snapping at WH visitors
Distinguished/Famous/Exotic/Notable Pets
- Polly, parrot (James Madison) outlived both James and wife Dolly; a parrot name associated with the type of bird to this day
- Silkworms (John Quincy Adams) First Lady Louisa spun silk
- Jack, turkey (Abraham Lincoln) intended for Christmas Dinner, Tad Lincoln intervened; first recorded pardoned turkey
- Fido, dog (Abraham Lincoln) "assassinated" by a drunk with a knife after Lincoln's death; the progenitor of the iconic dog name "Fido"
- Siam, Siamese cat (Rutherford B. Hayes) first official Siamese cat in the United States, gift from Bangkok, Thailand
- One-legged rooster (Theodore Roosevelt)
- Barn owl (Theodore Roosevelt)
- Emily Spinach, garter snake (Theodore Roosevelt) according to Roosevelt daughter Alice, "it was as green as spinach and as thin as my Aunt Emily"
- Do-Funny, trained troupial songbird (Calvin Coolidge) Mrs. Coolidge's favorite
- Rebecca, famous raccoon (Calvin Coolidge) originally intended to be Thanksgiving dinner; First Lady Grace Coolidge built a tree house for Rebecca instead
- Billy Possum, wild opossum (Herbert Hoover) occupied Rebecca's (Calvin Coolidge's raccoon) tree house
- Checkers, dog (Richard Nixon) used successfully as a televised emotional sympathy prop
- Pushinka, dog (John F. Kennedy) offspring of space dog Strelka and gift from Nikita Khrushchev
- Socks, cat (Bill Clinton) widely recognized
Who had the most pets?
26, including a horned toad, a black bear, a piebald rat, a laughing hyena, a barn owl, a pig, and a one-legged rooster (Theodore Roosevelt)
44, including Rebecca (famous racoon), a South American trained troupial songbird, Enoch (goose), Smoky (bobcat), Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau (lion cubs), a wallaby, a duiker (small antelope), Bruno (black bear), and 13 Pekin ducklings (Calvin Coolidge)
48 Sheep (Woodrow Wilson) kept the White House lawn trimmed "in the most economical way"
Who had the least Pets?
Mice (Andrew Johnson) not officially pets, as these were wild mice found, apparently, in Johnson's bedroom to which he showed benevolence by feeding them
No known pets (James K. Polk) Not a very sympathetic figure to many, who engaged in war with Mexico and was a major to contributor to setting the stage for Civil War which took place a few years after his presidency
No known pets (Donald John Trump) Our pet animals make us kinder and more human - Barron should have that experience.
Bonus - Vladimir Putin's Pets
- Konni, Black labrador (Vladimir Putin)
Putin was being updated on the progress of the Russian Global Navigation Satellite System GLONASS in 2007, when he inquired as to whether he would be able to buy a device hooked into GLONASS that would allow him to keep track of his dog, Konni. The collar was demonstrated on Konni on 17 October 2008, thus making Konni the first recipient of a GLONASS-enabled pet collar.
- Buffy, Karakachan (Vladimir Putin) from Bulgaria
- Yume, Akita (Vladimir Putin) gift from Japan for assistance in the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
- Verni, Alabai (Vladimir Putin) gift from Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow of Turkmenistan; Russian (верный) for ‘faithful’ or ‘loyal’