11 Popular—Or Just Plain Odd—Presidential Pets

Theodore Roosevelt came into possession of a baby badger on a trip west in 1903. Being Teddy Roosevelt, he named the badger “Josiah,” took it home with him, and gave it to his son Archie as a gift. In his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote that his son “used to carry [Josiah] about, clasped firmly around what would have been his waist if he had had any. Inasmuch as when on the ground the badger would play energetic games of tag with the little boy and nip his bare legs, I suggested that it would be uncommonly disagreeable if he took advantage of being held in the little boy’s arms to bite his face; but this suggestion was repelled with scorn as an unworthy assault on the character of Josiah. ‘He bites legs sometimes, but he never bites faces,’ said the little boy.”

Lyndon Baines Johnson owned a pair of registered beagles, named Him and Her, who became highly visible members of the first family. In 1964, they were also the source of a mini-scandal for LBJ, when he was photographed lifting Him up by his ears. The outcry was so great that Johnson had to issue a public statement regarding the incident, defending the dog’s yelps as “a sound of joy.” Neither dog survived their stay in the White House; Her died in 1964 after swallowing a stone and Him died in 1966 after being hit by an executive chauffeur.

Andrew Jackson was known as the first president of the people. He was the first president born west of the Appalachian Mountains, the first born in a log cabin, and a frequent participant in duels, once even killing a man. Apparently his rough nature also extended to his language, as his parrot, Poll, developed a knack for using curse words, presumably learned from Jackson. When the former president died, the bird created such a disturbance at his funeral that it had to be removed.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt doted on his Scottish terrier, Fala. The dog was generally found at his master’s side, even accompanying him overseas on various wartime travels. The Secret Service began calling Fala “The Informer,” because sightings of him on a walk gave away FDR’s schedule. In 1944, a rumor floated around that Fala had been left behind on a trip to the Aleutian Islands and a naval ship had to make a special trip to retrieve him. The accusations forced FDR to deliver the “Fala Speech” during the 1944 presidential campaign. He denied the accusations, adding that he and his family didn’t resent attacks against themselves, but “Fala does resent the attacks…his Scot soul was furious.”

In a similar story eight years later, vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon faced accusations that he had a secret trust fund for his campaign. He took to national television to deny the charges, but he did admit to accepting one unreported gift. In a famous moment of television history that has become known as the “Checkers Speech,” Nixon explained: “It was a little cocker spaniel dog…Black and white spotted. And our little girl—Tricia, the six-year-old—named it Checkers. And you know the kids, like all kids, love that dog, and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re going to keep it.”

According to legend, John Quincy Adams kept an alligator in the White House for several months. The uncommon pet, a gift from the Marquis de Lafayette, took up residence in the unfinished East Room bathroom. One story about the alligator claims that Adams would direct White House visitors to use that bathroom—especially those he did not like—in order to watch their flights of terror. Unfortunately, the White House Historical Society calls this a “satisfying but dubious legend.”

In 1989, George H.W. Bush’s Springer Spaniel, Millie, gave birth to a litter of puppies at the White House. Bush’s son, George W., adopted one of these pups and named her Spot Fetcher. Spotty returned to the White House twelve years later, when George W. Bush was inaugurated president and she followed in her mother’s pawsteps as a first dog. She is undoubtedly the only dog to have lived at the White House under the care of two different presidents.

Another White House pup with a famous mother was the Kennedy family’s Pushinka, a white mixed-breed whose name means “fluffy” in Russian. Her mother, Strelka, was a Soviet space dog, one of the first two pups to orbit Earth and return safely, aboard Sputnik 2. Soviet Premier Khrushchev sent Pushinka to the Kennedy family, both as a gift and as a bit of bravado, to further rub in the fact that the Soviets were currently winning the Space Race. Kennedy accepted the puppy graciously, writing to Khrushchev that “her flight from the Soviet Union was not as dramatic as the flight of her mother, nevertheless, it was a long voyage and she stood it well.”

During World War I, the Wilson family aided the war effort by posting a flock of sheep on the White House lawn. As many as 48 sheep grazed the property, cutting down on labor and maintenance costs. An auction of their wool netted $53,823 for the Red Cross. The Wilson sheep were not the only livestock to grace the White House lawn during the twentieth century; the previous president, William Howard Taft, had kept a dairy cow named Pauline Wayne as a source of fresh milk.

In early 1879, First Lady Lucy Webb Hayes received a Siamese kitten from a U.S. diplomat stationed in Bangkok. The kitten, aptly named Siam, is believed to be the first Siamese cat brought to America. She fell ill at the end of the year and President Hayes’s own physician attended to her care, but Siam did not survive. Her body was given to the Secretary of Agriculture to preserve, but there are no records of what happened to the stuffed Siam. One hundred years after her short reign, the White House saw two consecutive Siamese first cats: Susan Ford’s Shan (1974–1977) and Amy Carter’s Misty Malarky Ying Yang (1977–1981).

Perhaps the most famous first feline was Socks. The black and white cat started life as a stray in Arkansas, before catching the attention of Chelsea Clinton and joining the future first family. Shortly after Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, Socks became a media focal point and the family had an issue with photographers luring him out for a photo op. Upon moving to the White House, the Clintons had to keep Socks on a leash while out in the yard. Socks went on to embrace his media presence, becoming the first presidential pet to have a website. He received massive amounts of fan mail, which he always returned with a paw print. In 1997, the Clintons adopted a dog they named Buddy. Socks never warmed to his new canine companion, leading Clinton to quip, “You know, I did better with the Arabs, the Palestinians, and the Israelis than I’ve done with Socks and Buddy.”