National Dog Day: Presidents and Their Dogs.

Today is National Dog Day.  Dogs are a supremely domesticated animal.  They read our moods, respond to our needs, love us even when we are not lovable and can be trained to be useful as well as companions.  I have owned two dogs in my adult life.  One was a white German Shepherd who grew up with my girls.  They could not have had a better friend.  The second was a neighborhood puppy.  His mother was a shepherd, but his father was a traveling man.  Like his predecessor, he was gentle, good natured and lived to make his family happy.  If you get the impression that I like big “doggy” looking dogs, you would be right. My dogs have been wonderful, loving and supportive animals.  Neither was particularly smart, but I know people I could describe the same way. 

Since I am a scholar of Presidential history and this is a subject much in the news, I thought I would do a little research into Presidential dogs.  What strikes one almost immediately is that our Presidents seem to like animals around them—dogs in particular.  Truman is famous for saying that if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.  He was probably right.

Some Presidential dogs have achieved fame in their own right.  FDR’s Scottish terrier, Fala, is well known for having been left behind on a Presidential trip to the Aleutian Islands and had to be fetched back on military transport.  We have watched the Obama children and First Lady Nancy Reagan being dragged off their feet by dogs that have an abundance of energy and a paucity of training.  Lyndon Johnson got some bad press by picking up his hunting beagles by their ears (not recommended) and Barbara Bush got great reviews for writing a book from a dog’s point of view about Millie, the Bush’s English springer spaniel, and its life in the White House. 

George Washington bred hunting hounds and is credited for developing the American foxhound, a longer legged and sleeker version of the English foxhound.  He also gave them rather colorful names like Drunkard and Sweetlips.   Of course, Washington never lived in the White House, which wasn’t built until Adams became President.  John Adams had only two dogs of mixed breed.  One of them was named Satan and I am pretty sure there is a story there. 

   

Theodore Roosevelt had five dogs, Coolidge eleven and Hoover nine (including a Norwegian elkhound, the dog of my youth and an elegant breed).  Each of these Presidents also had a veritable menagerie of other pets that went from snakes to birds to goats to cows and horses. 

Then there are the Presidents who didn’t have dogs but did keep other animals.  James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, Wm. Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Chester A. Arthur, and William McKinley did not keep a dog but had other animals.  Andrew Johnson makes this list because he kept and fed the mice he found in his bedroom at the White House.  That is the strangest, but not the most damning thing I know about Andrew Johnson.  

With three exceptions, the rest of our Presidents were dog owners.  Some loved the dogs as their own, others as pets for their children.  Some brought their dogs with them and others were gifted with animals while President.

There are, as I have said, three Presidents who have chosen a pet-free home.  These were James K. Polk, Harry Truman and Donald Trump.  If there is a pattern there, I cannot see it.  I have read biographies of both Polk and Truman and see absolutely nothing that is common among any of these men, other than they chose not to keep pets.  

For what it is worth, Presidential Candidate Joe Biden has a German shepherd named “Major” that he rescued from the Delaware animal shelter.  He wanted a companion for his aging shepherd “Champ.”  After rescuing Major, Biden fostered the dog for months and then, knowing he was a good fit, adopted him.  Nice.  

Someday I will own another dog, until then I keep the faith.