History of Presidential Pets

Pets have a long and varied history at the White House. Initially, animals were working animals, with cats in particular serving the role of rodent catcher. Overtime, however, family pets replaced working animals, a trend that soon extended into households across the nation. Abraham Lincoln is believed to have been the first President to own cats as pets. Secretary of State William Seward gifted the Lincolns two cats named Tabby and Dixie, who soon became beloved members of the family. So beloved were these pets, that when a journalist asked First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln what the President’s favorite hobbies were, she flatly replied, “Cats.”

President Theodore Roosevelt was known to have had a menagerie of pets during his administration. This collection included a bear named Jonathan Edwards; a lizard named Bill; guinea pigs named Admiral Dewey, Dr. Johnson, Bishop Doane, Fighting Bob Evans, and Father O'Grady; Maude the pig; Josiah the badger; Eli Yale the blue macaw; Baron Spreckle the hen; a one-legged rooster; a hyena named Bill and a lion cub named Joe, both gifts from King Menelik of Abyssinia; a barn owl; Peter the rabbit; and Algonquin the pony.

Calvin Coolidge also kept an assortment of animals, such as a pygmy hippo, a bobcat, lion cubs, and a wallaby. His favorite pet was a racoon named Rebecca; President Coolidge would visit her every day and walk her around the White House on a leash. When the White House was being repaired and the President and his family moved temporarily, he worried that Rebecca might get lonely, so a limousine was sent to bring her from the White House to stay with them.

Presidential pets became minor celebrities and goodwill ambassadors of sorts, and helped to promote causes and smooth diplomatic relations. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s dog Fala donated toys to promote scrap rubber collection for the war effort in 1942, and President and First Lady Ford donated their dog Liberty’s puppies to a guide dog program for the blind. In a true display of Cold War-era diplomacy, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gifted a dog, Pushinka, to President John F. Kennedy. Pushinka was the offspring of Strelka, who had boarded the Soviet artificial satellite Korabl-Sputnik 2.