Happy President’s Day, everyone!
We thought we’d celebrate with some presidential pet fun facts!
- Over 200 animals have made their home at the White House
- George Washington named his dogs Drunkard, Taster, Tipsy, Tipler and Sweetlips.
- President Coolidge’s wife had a Raccoon named Rebecca.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt had a dog Murray the Outlaw of Falahill. The dog, nicknamed Fala, was so popular that he received thousands of fan letters.
- Both George Washington and James Madison’s wives, Martha and Dolly, respectively, had parrots.
- Thomas Jefferson had a pet mockingbird.
- John Quincy Adams had one of the most dangerous pets: an alligator that had been gifted to him by the Marquis de Lafayette. His wife, Louisa, kept silkworms as pets.
- James Buchanan was the lucky recipient of a herd of elephants given by the King of Siam. Unlike the case with President Van Buren, who was told by Congress to donate his tiger cubs to the zoo (he did), President Buchanan got to keep his gift. He kept one elephant at the White House, along with his pair of Bald Eagles and his Newfoundland dog.
- Rutherford Hayes, in a way, introduced the Siamese cat breed to America, since he was the first to own one of the exotic cats.
- Theodore Roosevelt practically had a zoo on the White House grounds. Most notably: snakes, badger, lion, hyena, zebra, and five bears. And that is not counting the “normal” pets, like the dogs, cats, horses, birds, rats and guinea pigs.
- Woodrow Wilson had sheep as groundskeepers. They took care of the grass, but who took care of the sheep droppings?
