New Book Tells Tales Of Presidents' Dogs

PresidentHarry Truman once said, "If you want a friend in Washington, get adog." That could be why there has been a dog living at 1600 PennsylvaniaAvenue for much of American history. However, never before the election ofBarack Obama had the selection of a First Dog been anticipated with suchexcitement.

Research ties U.S. presidents to canine pets

First Dogs: American Presidents and their Best Friends recounts stories of dogs that lived at 1600 Pennsylvania AvenueIt is neither new nor unusual for a dog to be living in thepresidential mansion.

"Ithink Calvin Coolidge once said, 'Any man who doesn't like dogs, doesn'tdeserve to be in the White House,'" says Roy Rowan, co-author of FirstDogs: American Presidents and their Best Friends.

"Wedid a lot of research and discovered that presidents, going back to GeorgeWashington, all seemed to have dogs," he adds. "There are only two orthree presidents that we couldn't discover whether or not they had dogs,"Rowan says.

Dogs wereclosely attached to the Presidents even before there was a White House. GeorgeWashington, he points out, had a number of dogs among other pets. His trustydog Sweetlips accompanied him into battle during the Revolutionary War.

F.D.R.'s Fala

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Fala in Washington, DC (1943)
<Credit: First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Best Friends>
Over the years, Rowan says, some first dogs became more popularthan others.

One ofthe most famous, says Rowan, is Fala, a black Scotty that belonged to U.S.President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "Fala had been taken everywhere withRoosevelt, even was on the cruiser Savannah, when Roosevelt and Churchillsigned the Atlantic Charter, Churchill brought his dog too, Rufus. I think thetwo dogs had a good time, just as the President and Prime minister did,"Rowan says.

King Tut warmed up Hoover's image

Onecanine even helped swing an election. In 1928, Rowan says, the conservativeRepublican candidate Herbert Hoover, who had never run for any office, appearedtoo stiff and austere to get elected.

Hoover's police dog helped him win the White House
<Credit: First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Best Friends>
"Hedidn't have much expression and his campaign managers were very worried,"he says. "So they decided to pose him with this big police dog, King Tut,for his official campaign picture."

Rowansays King Tut gave his master a cuddlier image and Hoover won the White House.

Getting dogs to play politics

Someother first dogs had big political roles after elections.

"President Harding, for instance, had his dog Laddie Boy, an Airedale,"Rowan says. "And when the President wanted to criticize opposingpoliticians, he used Laddie Boy and had him interviewed by the Washington Star.Then the words came from Laddie Boy and not from the President, so thePresident wouldn't be held responsible for some of the nasty things they had tosay about other people in politics. Take President Clinton, when he got caughtup in the Lewinsky scandal, he suddenly got a dog, Buddy, a Chocolate Labradorto help defuse that situation. So dogs have been used also as weapons of 'massdistraction,'" Rowan quips.

Lincoln's Fido

One ofthe stories Rowan recounts in the book is about Fido, Abraham Lincoln's dog,who never actually lived in the White House.

"Lincolndecided when he was elected president he wouldn't take Fido toWashington," he says. "So he left him with a neighbor family and gavethe neighbor special instructions to feed the dog. The Lincoln's gave theneighbor their couch which their dog was accustomed to sleeping on, so the dogwould continue to have a good life. But, unfortunately, right after Lincoln wasassassinated Fido escaped from the neighbor's house and went out in the street.And he put his paws, his muddy paws, on this drunk who was sitting on the curb.The drunk pulled out a knife and stabbed poor Fido to death. The neighborfamily wrote Mrs. Lincoln a letter saying, 'Like his master, poor Fido wasassassinated.'"

Other presidential pets

Claire McLean, founder of the Presidential Pet Museum says horses were once popular White House pets
Though dogs have been the favorite pet for more recentpresidents, that wasn't always the case, says Claire McLean, founder of thePresidential Pet Museum.

"Inthe early days horses were very popular," she says. "Then birds werequite popular. In the early days dogs didn't seem to be in much favor with theearly presidents. And gradually dogs became much more popular than they hadbeen mostly because they are much more home oriented, people oriented and theywere accepted by the American public," McLean adds.

Presidential Pet Museum visitors learn about dogs and other creatures that lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Visitors to the Presidential Pet Museum, shesays, can see pictures and read stories of other interesting creatures thatcalled 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home.

"Adams (1789-1891) had an alligator," she says. " Van Buren(1837-1841) had two tiger cubs. He had a cage on the White House lawn area. Hewould love those tiger cubs, and his wife liked them. They were cute andlittle. They were getting bigger bigger, and Congress said that gifts to the presidentbelong to the public and should be put in the National Zoo. Van Buren fought tokeep them as his own but Congress sent those little tiger cubs to the zoo.President Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) had raccoons, which he made pets of.President Taft (1909-1913) had a cow, and he let it graze on the WhiteHouse lawn, and it was his pet cow. Every morning, someone from the White Housewould milk it and bring him the fresh milk. Eventually, he got so fat and afterthat, the cow went to the farm because his doctor told him he had to stopdrinking so much fresh milk and getting so fat," the museum founder says.

Obama's Bo

Selecting America's first dog, Bo Obama, was a hot topic for dog lovers across AmericaPerhaps no other dog received the attention Bo Obama got, evenbefore arriving at the White House. Roy Rowan says the Portuguese water dog wasa gift from the late Senator Edward Kennedy, a dog lover himself.

"Obamamentioned that he was going to give the girls a dog when he delivered hisvictory speech in Chicago the night of election," he says. "Then alldog lovers in the United States seemed to be excited about this. Many of themsuggested different breeds. Breeders also offered dogs to the President. the elder daughter was allergic to certain kinds of dogs. So, they hadto be careful and they ended up with this Portuguese water dog that was safefor her to have."

Rowan says dogs have becomean important part of the public image of the first family and in many casesthey become celebrities in their own right.